Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest
Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest

Author: Dean Vuletic

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2018-01-25

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 147427627X

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Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest examines how the Eurovision Song Contest has reflected and become intertwined with the history of postwar Europe from a political perspective. Established in 1956, the Eurovision Song Contest is the world's largest popular music event and one of the most popular television programmes in Europe, currently attracting a global audience of around 200 million people. Eurovision is often mocked as cultural kitsch because of its over-the-top performances and frivolous song lyrics. Yet there is no cultural medium that connects Europeans more than popular music, the development of which has always been tied to cultural, economic, political, social and technological change – making Eurovision the ideal tool to explain the history of Europe in the last sixty years. This book uses Eurovision as a vehicle to address topics ranging from the Cold War, liberal democracy and communism to nationalism, European integration, economic prosperity and human rights. It analyses these subjects through their cultural, political and social relationships with Eurovision entries as expressed through lyrics and music, as well as by examining public debates that have accompanied the selection of the entries and the organisation of the contest itself. Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest also considers how states have used Eurovision to define their identities in a European context, be it to assert their national distinctiveness, highlight political issues or affirm their Europeanism or Euroscepticism in the context of European integration. Based on original sources, including hitherto unpublished archival documents from international broadcasting organisations, this is a novel historical study of interest to anyone keen to know more about the postwar history of Europe and its cultural history in particular.

A Song for Europe
A Song for Europe

Author: Ivan Raykoff

Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 9780754658795

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The world's largest and longest-running song competition, the Eurovision Song Contest is a significant and extremely popular media event throughout the continent and abroad. Here, an international group of scholars from a variety of disciplines, explore how the contest sheds light on issues of European politics, national and European identity, race, gender and sexuality, and the aesthetics of camp. Eurovision is sometimes regarded as a low-brow camp spectacle of little aesthetic or intellectual value. The essays in this collection often contradict this assumption, demonstrating that the contest has actually been a significant force and forecaster for social, cultural and political transformations in postwar Europe.

Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest
Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest

Author: Dean Vuletic

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2018-01-25

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 1474276288

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Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest examines how the Eurovision Song Contest has reflected and become intertwined with the history of postwar Europe from a political perspective. Established in 1956, the Eurovision Song Contest is the world's largest popular music event and one of the most popular television programmes in Europe, currently attracting a global audience of around 200 million people. Eurovision is often mocked as cultural kitsch because of its over-the-top performances and frivolous song lyrics. Yet there is no cultural medium that connects Europeans more than popular music, the development of which has always been tied to cultural, economic, political, social and technological change – making Eurovision the ideal tool to explain the history of Europe in the last sixty years. This book uses Eurovision as a vehicle to address topics ranging from the Cold War, liberal democracy and communism to nationalism, European integration, economic prosperity and human rights. It analyses these subjects through their cultural, political and social relationships with Eurovision entries as expressed through lyrics and music, as well as by examining public debates that have accompanied the selection of the entries and the organisation of the contest itself. Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest also considers how states have used Eurovision to define their identities in a European context, be it to assert their national distinctiveness, highlight political issues or affirm their Europeanism or Euroscepticism in the context of European integration. Based on original sources, including hitherto unpublished archival documents from international broadcasting organisations, this is a novel historical study of interest to anyone keen to know more about the postwar history of Europe and its cultural history in particular.

Postwar
Postwar

Author: Tony Judt

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2006-09-05

Total Pages: 1000

ISBN-13: 9780143037750

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Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize • Winner of the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award • One of the New York Times' Ten Best Books of the Year “Impressive . . . Mr. Judt writes with enormous authority.” —The Wall Street Journal “Magisterial . . . It is, without a doubt, the most comprehensive, authoritative, and yes, readable postwar history.” —The Boston Globe Almost a decade in the making, this much-anticipated grand history of postwar Europe from one of the world's most esteemed historians and intellectuals is a singular achievement. Postwar is the first modern history that covers all of Europe, both east and west, drawing on research in six languages to sweep readers through thirty-four nations and sixty years of political and cultural change-all in one integrated, enthralling narrative. Both intellectually ambitious and compelling to read, thrilling in its scope and delightful in its small details, Postwar is a rare joy. Judt's book, Ill Fares the Land, republished in 2021 featuring a new preface by bestselling author of Between the World and Me and The Water Dancer, Ta-Nehisi Coates.

International Relations, Music and Diplomacy
International Relations, Music and Diplomacy

Author: Frédéric Ramel

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-01-22

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 3319631632

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This volume explores the interrelation of international relations, music, and diplomacy from a multidisciplinary perspective. Throughout history, diplomats have gathered for musical events, and musicians have served as national representatives. Whatever political unit is under consideration (city-states, empires, nation-states), music has proven to be a component of diplomacy, its ceremonies, and its strategies. Following the recent acoustic turn in IR theory, the authors explore the notion of “musical diplomacies” and ask whether and how it differs from other types of cultural diplomacy. Accordingly, sounds and voices are dealt with in acoustic terms but are not restricted to music per se, also taking into consideration the voices (speech) of musicians in the international arena. Read an interview with the editors here: https://www.sciencespo.fr/ceri/en/content/international-relations-music-and-diplomacy-sounds-and-voices-international-stage

The Complete & Independent Guide to the Eurovision Song Contest: Lugano 1956 - Tel Aviv 2019
The Complete & Independent Guide to the Eurovision Song Contest: Lugano 1956 - Tel Aviv 2019

Author: Simon Barclay

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2019-06-06

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 0244791074

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The 2019 Edition of the Complete & Independent Guide to the Eurovision Song Contest is the 12th edition of this book and as usual it is packed with statistical details of every Contest since 1956 along with plenty of analysis, over 348 pages, our biggest edition ever. The book looks at the national qualification competitions for 2019 and has an in-depth section on the entire voting history of each country, along with dozens of facts and statistics on this year's Contest and historical trends, including jury/public differences, bloc voting and analysis of where best to perform in the running order.

Space Opera
Space Opera

Author: Catherynne M. Valente

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2018-04-10

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 1481497510

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2019 HUGO AWARD FINALIST, BEST NOVEL The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy meets the joy and glamour of Eurovision in bestselling author Catherynne M. Valente's science fiction spectacle, where sentient races compete for glory in a galactic musical contest…and the stakes are as high as the fate of planet Earth. A century ago, the Sentience Wars tore the galaxy apart and nearly ended the entire concept of intelligent space-faring life. In the aftermath, a curious tradition was invented—something to cheer up everyone who was left and bring the shattered worlds together in the spirit of peace, unity, and understanding. Once every cycle, the great galactic civilizations gather for the Metagalactic Grand Prix—part gladiatorial contest, part beauty pageant, part concert extravaganza, and part continuation of the wars of the past. Species far and wide compete in feats of song, dance and/or whatever facsimile of these can be performed by various creatures who may or may not possess, in the traditional sense, feet, mouths, larynxes, or faces. And if a new species should wish to be counted among the high and the mighty, if a new planet has produced some savage group of animals, machines, or algae that claim to be, against all odds, sentient? Well, then they will have to compete. And if they fail? Sudden extermination for their entire species. This year, though, humankind has discovered the enormous universe. And while they expected to discover a grand drama of diplomacy, gunships, wormholes, and stoic councils of aliens, they have instead found glitter, lipstick, and electric guitars. Mankind will not get to fight for its destiny—they must sing. Decibel Jones and the Absolute Zeroes have been chosen to represent their planet on the greatest stage in the galaxy. And the fate of Earth lies in their ability to rock.

Eurovision!
Eurovision!

Author: Chris West

Publisher:

Published: 2020-05-07

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 9781911545552

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Do you think the world of the Eurovision Song Contest, with its crazy props, even crazier dancers and crazier still songs has nothing to do with serious European politics? Think again. It has been a voice of rebellion across the Iron Curtain, an inspiration for new European nations in the 1990s and 2000s, the voice of liberation for both sexual and regional minorities. Eurovision charts both the history of Europe and the history of the Eurovision Song Contest over the last six decades, and shows how seamlessly they interlink - and what an amazing journey it has been.

Eurovisions: Identity and the International Politics of the Eurovision Song Contest since 1956
Eurovisions: Identity and the International Politics of the Eurovision Song Contest since 1956

Author: Julie Kalman

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2019-11-19

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 981139427X

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This book uses the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC), as an analytical entry point to understand and illuminate post-War Europe and the drive to create an identity that can legitimise the European project in its broadest sense. The ESC presents an idealised vision of Europe, and this has long existed in a strained relationship with reality. While the trajectory of post-war European integration is a high-profile topic, we believe that the ESC offers a unique and innovative way to think about the role of culture in the history of post-War European integration and tensions between the ideal and reality of European unity. Through the series of case studies that make up the chapters in this book, analysis brings these interlinked tensions to light, exploring the roles of culture and identity, alongside and a productive conversation with the political and economic projects of post-war European integration.

Opera and the Political Imaginary in Old Regime France
Opera and the Political Imaginary in Old Regime France

Author: Olivia Bloechl

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 022652275X

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From its origins in the 1670s through the French Revolution, serious opera in France was associated with the power of the absolute monarchy, and its ties to the crown remain at the heart of our understanding of this opera tradition (especially its foremost genre, the tragédie en musique). In Opera and the Political Imaginary in Old Regime France, however, Olivia Bloechl reveals another layer of French opera’s political theater. The make-believe worlds on stage, she shows, involved not just fantasies of sovereign rule but also aspects of government. Plot conflicts over public conduct, morality, security, and law thus appear side-by-side with tableaus hailing glorious majesty. What’s more, opera’s creators dispersed sovereign-like dignity and powers well beyond the genre’s larger-than-life rulers and gods, to its lovers, magicians, and artists. This speaks to the genre’s distinctive combination of a theological political vocabulary with a concern for mundane human capacities, which is explored here for the first time. By looking at the political relations among opera characters and choruses in recurring scenes of mourning, confession, punishment, and pardoning, we can glimpse a collective political experience underlying, and sometimes working against, ancienrégime absolutism. Through this lens, French opera of the period emerges as a deeply conservative, yet also more politically nuanced, genre than previously thought.