5 books found
Among the most original and provocative musicological writers of his generation, James Hepokoski has elaborated new paradigms of inquiry for both music history and music theory. Advocating fundamental shifts of methodological reorientation within the quest for potential musical meanings, his work spans both disciplines and offers substantial challenges for each. At its core is the conviction that a close study of musical genres, procedures, and structures those qualities of a composition that are specifically musical is essential to any responsible hermeneutic enterprise. Selected from writings from 1984 to 2008, this collection of essays provides a generous introduction to the author‘s most innovative and influential work on a wide variety of topics: musicological methodology, issues of staging and performance, Italian opera, program music, and exemplary studies of individual pieces.
The day-to-day experiences of the American soldiers fighting in the Mexican War James McCaffrey examines America's first foreign war, the Mexican War, through the day-to-day experiences of the American soldier in battle, in camp, and on the march. With remarkable sympathy, humor, and grace, the author fills in the historical gaps of one war while rising issues now found to be strikingly relevant to this nation's modern military concerns.
Oliver Stone has written and directed many memorable films while also developing a reputation for tackling controversial subjects, such as the Turkish prison system (Midnight Express), the Vietnam war (Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July), insider trading (Wall Street), presidential assassination (JFK), and a voyeuristic media (Natural Born Killers). Along the way, Stone has been nominated for more than 10 Academy Awards and three times received Oscars for his work. In The Oliver StoneEncyclopedia, James M. Welsh and Donald M. Whaley provide an overarching evaluation of Stone's work as screenwriter, producer, and director. While the entries in this volume address all of the usual aspects of Stone’s career, they also explore new avenues of critical evaluation, especially influences such as Friedrich Nietzsche and Buddhism, which Stone converted to in the 1990s. In addition, this volume traces Stone’s obsession with Latin American politics, evident in his film Salvador (1986), his screenplay for Alan Parker’s Evita (1996), and the documentaries Commandante (2003), Looking for Fidel (2004), and South of the Border (2010). Each entry is followed by a bibliography of published sources, both in print and online. A comprehensive and engaging examination of the director, The Oliver Stone Encyclopedia will appeal to scholars and fans alike as the most comprehensive reference on this director's body of work.