Bruce Springsteen and Pink Floyd Get Their First Scholarly Journals and Academic Conferences

in Education, Music | March 26th, 2014

TheBoss2008

When I first entered col­lege in the mid-‘90s, the phe­nom­e­non of pop cul­ture stud­ies in acad­e­mia seemed like an excit­ing nov­el­ty, bound to the ethos of the Clin­ton years. Often inci­sive, occa­sion­al­ly friv­o­lous, pop cul­ture stud­ies made acad­e­mia fun again, and rein­vig­o­rat­ed the world of schol­ar­ly pub­lish­ing and col­lege life in gen­er­al. All man­ner of fan­dom ruled the day: we took class­es in hip hop videos and Buffy the Vam­pire Slay­er, Ala­nis Mor­ris­sette rede­fined irony, and near­ly every­one got hired right after grad­u­a­tion (see for ref­er­ence the cult clas­sic 1994 film PCU). These days I don’t need to tell you that the prospects for new grads are con­sid­er­ably reduced, but I’m very hap­py to find aca­d­e­m­ic soci­eties and jour­nals still orga­nized around TV shows, fan­ta­sy nov­els, and pop music. Today we bring you two exam­ples from the world of Clas­sic Rock & Roll Stud­ies (to coin a term). First up we have BOSS, or “The Bian­nu­al Online-Jour­nal of Spring­steen Stud­ies.”

Spring­steen Stud­ies is not new. In fact, a mas­sive Spring­steen sym­po­sium called “Glo­ry Days”—joint­ly spon­sored by Vir­ginia Tech, Penn State, and Mon­mouth Uni­ver­si­ty—has tak­en place twice in West Long Branch, New Jer­sey since 2005 and is cur­rent­ly prepar­ing for its next event. BOSS, how­ev­er, only just emerged, the first schol­ar­ly Spring­steen jour­nal ever pub­lished. The first issue will appear in June of this year, and the edi­tors are now solic­it­ing 15 to 25 page aca­d­e­m­ic arti­cles for their Jan­u­ary, 2015 issue. Describ­ing them­selves as a “schol­ar­ly space for Spring­steen Stud­ies in the con­tem­po­rary acad­e­my,” BOSS seeks “broad inter­dis­ci­pli­nary and cross-dis­ci­pli­nary approach­es to Springsteen’s song­writ­ing, per­for­mance, and fan com­mu­ni­ty.” Spring­steen schol­ars: check the BOSS site for dead­lines and con­tact info.

Unlike most schol­ar­ly jour­nals, BOSS is open-access, so fans and admir­ers of all kinds can read the sure-to-be fas­ci­nat­ing dis­cus­sions it fos­ters as it works toward secur­ing “a place for Spring­steen Stud­ies in the con­tem­po­rary acad­e­my.” Spring­steen Stud­ies’ advo­ca­cy appears to be working—Rutgers Uni­ver­si­ty plans to add a Spring­steen the­ol­o­gy class, cov­er­ing Springsteen’s entire discog­ra­phy, and oth­er insti­tu­tions like Prince­ton and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Rochester have offered Spring­steen cours­es in the past.

In anoth­er first for a spe­cial­ized pop cul­ture field, the first-ever aca­d­e­m­ic con­fer­ence on the work of Pink Floyd will be held this com­ing April 13 at Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty. Called “Pink Floyd: Sound, Sight, and Struc­ture,” the event promis­es to be a mul­ti-media extrav­a­gan­za, fea­tur­ing as its keynote speak­er Gram­my-award win­ning Pink Floyd pro­duc­er and engi­neer James Guthrie. (See Guthrie and oth­ers dis­cuss the pro­duc­tion of the sur­round-sound Super Audio CD of Wish You Were Here in the video above). In addi­tion to Guthrie’s talk, and his sur­round sound mix of the band’s music, the con­fer­ence will offer “live com­po­si­tions and arrange­ments inspired by Pink Floyd’s music,” an “exhi­bi­tion of Pink Floyd cov­ers and art,” and a screen­ing of The Wall. Papers include “The Visu­al Music of Pink Floyd,” “Space and Rep­e­ti­tion in David Gilmour’s Gui­tar Solos,” and “Sev­er­al Species of Small Fur­ry Ani­mals: The Genius of Ear­ly Floyd.” Admis­sion is free, but you’ll need to RSVP to get in. The town of Prince­ton will join in the fes­tiv­i­ties with “Out­side the Wall,” a series of events and spe­cials on drinks, din­ing, art, and music.

While these events and pub­li­ca­tions may seem to locate pop cul­ture stud­ies square­ly in New Jer­sey, those inter­est­ed can find con­fer­ences all over the world, in fact. A good place to start is the site of the PCA (“Pop Cul­ture Asso­ci­a­tion”), which hosts its annu­al con­fer­ence next month in Chica­go, and the Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence on Media and Pop­u­lar Cul­ture will be held this May in Vien­na. Pop cul­ture and media stud­ies still seem to me to be par­tic­u­lar prod­ucts of the opti­mistic ‘90s (due to my own vin­tage, no doubt), but it appears these aca­d­e­m­ic fields are thriv­ing, despite the vast­ly dif­fer­ent eco­nom­ic cli­mate we now live in, with its no-fun, belt-tight­en­ing effects on high­er ed across the board.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bruce Spring­steen Exhi­bi­tion Held in Philadel­phia; It’s Now Offi­cial, The Boss is an Amer­i­can Icon

Heat Map­ping the Rise of Bruce Spring­steen: How the Boss Went Viral in a Pre-Inter­net Era

Watch Doc­u­men­taries on the Mak­ing of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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The World Concert Hall: Listen To The Best Live Classical Music Concerts for Free

in Music | March 26th, 2014

municipal_smetana-hall

While the Inter­net may not have helped glob­al music sales, it’s cer­tain­ly been a boon for fans want­i­ng to lis­ten to oth­er­wise-inac­ces­si­ble music, espe­cial­ly clas­si­cal music. We often post clas­si­cal musi­cal finds on Open Cul­ture. Take for exam­ple this com­pendi­um of freely down­load­able music from over 150 clas­si­cal com­posers, this open ver­sion of Bach’s Gold­berg vari­a­tions and all of Bach’s organ works, and then this col­lec­tion of 85,000 free clas­si­cal scores. Today, we bring you anoth­er fan­tas­tic resource: the World Con­cert Hall.

Just over a cen­tu­ry after the first radio per­for­mance of Rug­gero Leoncavallo’s “Il Pagli­ac­ci,” and Pietro Mascagni’s “Cav­al­le­ria Rus­ti­cana” were broad­cast live from the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Opera House in 1910, the World Con­cert Hall has made it its mis­sion to bring free live clas­si­cal con­certs to the world. The web­site con­tains a col­lec­tion of links to free radio per­for­mances each week, allow­ing lis­ten­ers to tune into live con­certs per­formed across the globe. You can browse per­for­mances accord­ing to the site’s sched­ule, or choose from a selec­tion of clas­si­cal radio sta­tions in a large num­ber of coun­tries. As you might expect, the U.S has the largest selec­tion by far, with 80 sta­tions. But for more curi­ous music lovers, World Con­cert Hall also offers a taste of what oth­er fans are lis­ten­ing to in oth­er coun­tries, like Chi­na, Japan, and Israel.

Inter­est­ed in check­ing out Mendelssohn’s con­cer­to for vio­lin, piano, and strings at Brus­sels’ Klara Fes­ti­val (today, 7pm, GMT) or Iri­na Ior­daches­cu and the Roman­ian Radio Nation­al Orches­tra per­form­ing Tchaikovsky’s last works (Fri­day, 5pm, GMT)? Lis­ten to your heart’s con­tent at World Con­cert Hall.

Ilia Blin­d­er­man is a Mon­tre­al-based cul­ture and sci­ence writer. Fol­low him at @iliablinderman, or read more of his writ­ing at the Huff­in­g­ton Post.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, Visu­al­ized in a Com­put­er Ani­ma­tion for Its 100th Anniver­sary

Debussy Plays Debussy: The Great Composer’s Play­ing Returns to Life

The Genius of J.S. Bach’s “Crab Canon” Visu­al­ized on a Möbius Strip

New­ly Dis­cov­ered Piece by Mozart Per­formed on His Own Fortepi­ano

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Thomas Edison & His Trusty Kinetoscope Create the First Movie Filmed In The US (c. 1889)

in Film, History | March 25th, 2014

Thomas Edi­son is undoubt­ed­ly America’s best-known inven­tor. Nick­named “The Wiz­ard of Men­lo Park” for his pro­lif­ic cre­ativ­i­ty, Edi­son amassed a whop­ping 1093 patents through­out his life­time. His most impor­tant inven­tions, such as the incan­des­cent light bulb and the phono­graph, were not mere­ly rev­o­lu­tion­ary in and of them­selves: they led direct­ly to the estab­lish­ment of vast indus­tries, such as pow­er util­i­ties and the music busi­ness. It is one of his less­er known inven­tions, how­ev­er, that led to the pro­duc­tion of the first film shot in the Unit­ed States, which you can view above.

The film, called Mon­keyshines, No. 1, was record­ed at some point between June 1889 and Novem­ber 1890. Its cre­ation is the work of William Dick­son, an employ­ee of Edison’s, who had been in charge of devel­op­ing the inventor’s idea for a new film-view­ing device. The machine that Edi­son had con­ceived and Dick­son engi­neered was the Kine­to­scope: a large box that housed a sys­tem that quick­ly moved a strip of film over a light source. Users watched the film whiz by from a hole in the top of the box, and by using sequen­tial images, like those in a flip-book, the Kine­to­scope gave the impres­sion of move­ment.

kinematografidisona

In the film, which Dick­son and anoth­er Edi­son employ­ee named William Heise cre­at­ed, a blur­ry out­line of an Edi­son labs employ­ee moves about, seem­ing­ly danc­ing. The above clip con­tains both Mon­keyshines, No. 1, and its sequel, appar­ent­ly filmed to con­duct fur­ther equip­ment tests, known as Mon­keyshines, No. 2. HD video, this is not. Despite hav­ing the hon­or of being the first films to be shot in the US, the Mon­keyshines series has gar­nered an unen­thu­si­as­tic reac­tion from present-day crit­ics: the orig­i­nal received a rat­ing of 5.5/10 stars at IMDB. The sequel? A 5.4.

Ilia Blin­d­er­man is a Mon­tre­al-based cul­ture and sci­ence writer. Fol­low him at @iliablinderman, or read more of his writ­ing at the Huff­in­g­ton Post.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Thomas Edi­son and Niko­la Tes­la Face Off in “Epic Rap Bat­tles of His­to­ry”

Magi­cian Mar­co Tem­pest Daz­zles a TED Audi­ence with “The Elec­tric Rise and Fall of Niko­la Tes­la”

A Brief, Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion to Thomas Edi­son (and Niko­la Tes­la)

Thomas Edi­son Recites “Mary Had a Lit­tle Lamb” in Ear­ly Voice Record­ing

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David Bowie Talks and Sings on The Dick Cavett Show (1974)

in Music, Television | March 25th, 2014

I can think of very few taste­ful phe­nom­e­na to have come to promi­nence in the sev­en­ties, but David Bowie’s albums and Dick Cavet­t’s talk shows both make the short list. In the mid­dle of that decade, Bowie cer­tain­ly made the tele­vi­sion rounds; we pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured his 1975 appear­ance oppo­site Cher, and today we have his appear­ance oppo­site Cavett from the pre­vi­ous year. “David Bowie is a super­star in a cat­e­go­ry that has nev­er actu­al­ly been defined,” says the host about the rock­er, to audi­ence cheers, “because as soon as a crit­ic tries to say what he is, he changes, like a chameleon.” It seems that Bowie, then at the height of his self-trans­for­ma­tive ten­den­cies, could reduce even the most elo­quent man on tele­vi­sion to that not-quite-accu­rate cliché. As the for­mer host told Esquire thir­ty years after this broad­cast, “Does­n’t a chameleon exert tremen­dous ener­gy to become indis­tin­guish­able from its envi­ron­ment?”

Yet Cavett ulti­mate­ly holds his own with Bowie, a feat I doubt many of the rest of us could pull off then or now. The appear­ance involves more than just music; while Bowie does per­form, he also sits down to talk, some­thing that his fans had­n’t yet seen him do in 1974. To many of them, he remained for the most part a mys­tery, albeit an astute­ly rock­ing one. “Who is he? What is he?” Cavett rhetor­i­cal­ly asks the crowd. “Man? Woman? Robot?” In the event, they dis­cuss his school days, his ride on the Trans-Siber­ian Rail­way, the unfor­get­table Dia­mond Dogs cov­er art, his step back from “glit­ter,” why oth­er peo­ple would have feared inter­view­ing him, and whether he pic­tures him­self at six­ty (in the far-flung year of 2007). How easy to for­get, in this age when we can often con­verse with our idols by mere­ly send­ing them an @ reply on Twit­ter, how much a show­man like Bowie could leave to our imag­i­na­tions. He remains admirably secre­tive by today’s stan­dards, but back in the sev­en­ties, any­thing he said would have come as a rev­e­la­tion — espe­cial­ly if prompt­ed by no less art­ful a con­ver­sa­tion­al­ist.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Bowie and Cher Sing Duet of “Young Amer­i­cans” and Oth­er Songs on 1975 Vari­ety Show

David Bowie Sings ‘I Got You Babe’ with Mar­i­anne Faith­full in His Last Per­for­mance As Zig­gy Star­dust

David Bowie Releas­es Vin­tage Videos of His Great­est Hits from the 1970s and 1980s

David Bowie Recalls the Strange Expe­ri­ence of Invent­ing the Char­ac­ter Zig­gy Star­dust (1977)

David Bowie’s Top 100 Books

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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Billy Joel & Vanderbilt Student Perform Impromptu Duet of “New York State of Mind”

in Music | March 25th, 2014

Dur­ing a vis­it to Van­der­bilt Uni­ver­si­ty last year, Bil­ly Joel field­ed a ques­tion from a fresh­man, Michel Pol­lack. To para­phrase: “My favorite song of yours is New York State of Mind. Can I play it for you on the piano while you sing?” To which Joel replied, “Ok.” And off they went. It’s a love­ly impromp­tu moment. But it was a lit­tle too much for Pol­lack. A lit­tle over­whelmed by the whole expe­ri­ence, he got a 69 on his cal­cu­lus exam the next day. But who could blame him. We have more impromp­tu musi­cal moments below.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Lenny Kravitz Over­hears High School Kids Play­ing His Music and Sur­pris­es Them by Join­ing In

A Paul Simon Feelin’-Very-Groovy Moment with a Fan

Blind Gui­tarist Lives Out Dream at U2 Show

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Michel Foucault and Alain Badiou Discuss “Philosophy and Psychology” on French TV (1965)

in Philosophy, Psychology | March 25th, 2014

If sub­ti­tles don’t play auto­mat­i­cal­ly, please click the “CC” but­ton at the bot­tom of each video.

When Sig­mund Freud died in 1939, the year Hitler invad­ed Poland, W.H. Auden wrote a eulo­gy in verse and remarked “We are all Freudi­ans now.” One might have said some­thing sim­i­lar of Michel Fou­cault after his death in 1984. Fou­cault became a fierce­ly polit­i­cal philoso­pher after the May 1968 Paris stu­dent upris­ing and in a year that saw the Tet Offen­sive in Viet­nam and the assas­si­na­tions of Mar­tin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. In the fol­low­ing year—after the Man­son mur­ders and the grim events at Altamont—the six­ties effec­tive­ly came to an end as its utopi­an projects flared up and fiz­zled.

In the next repres­sive decade, Fou­cault pub­lished Dis­ci­pline and Pun­ish (1974) and his His­to­ry of Sex­u­al­i­ty (1976). Even as he used Freudi­an con­cepts, he declared Freudi­an psy­cho­analy­sis com­plic­it in what he called “dis­ci­pli­nary soci­ety,” anoth­er method, like pris­ons, schools, and hos­pi­tals, of keep­ing mass­es of peo­ple under con­stant sur­veil­lance and in states of sub­mis­sion. It is this post-‘68 Fou­cault many of us came to know—an anti-philoso­pher whose deep dis­trust of all insti­tu­tion­al forms of pow­er seemed the per­fect ally for post-ado­les­cent col­lege stu­dents in com­fort­able rebel­lion. This is why it is a lit­tle sur­pris­ing to see the Fou­cault above, in a 1965 con­ver­sa­tion with philoso­pher Alain Badiou, ensconced in the bour­geois world of a French philo­soph­i­cal cul­ture, with its lin­eages and ordi­nary cit­i­zens brows­ing paper­back copies of Marx and Hegel, instead of stag­ing Sit­u­a­tion­ist actions to dis­rupt the social order.

But of course, it’s only log­i­cal to infer that the one cul­ture led direct­ly to the oth­er. For all his rhetor­i­cal the­atrics, Fou­cault nev­er gave up on the human­ist insti­tu­tion of the uni­ver­si­ty, but always made his home in class­rooms, lec­ture halls, and yes, even TV inter­views. His top­ic in con­ver­sa­tion with Badiou is “Phi­los­o­phy and Psy­chol­o­gy” and they came togeth­er on the edu­ca­tion­al tele­vi­sion pro­gram L’enseignement de la philoso­phie—anoth­er tes­ta­ment, like the well-stocked book­stores and cul­tur­al land­marks, to a six­ties French cul­ture steeped in philo­soph­i­cal atti­tudes. Unfor­tu­nate­ly we have only the first two parts of the inter­view, above, with Eng­lish sub­ti­tles (the third and final part is still wait­ing to be trans­lat­ed). You can, how­ev­er, see the full inter­view in French below.

The inter­view opens with the ques­tion “What is psy­chol­o­gy?” Foucault’s answer, which he would revise many times in the com­ing decades, along with his ter­mi­nol­o­gy, begins by ask­ing that we “inter­ro­gate” the dis­ci­pline of Psy­chol­o­gy “like any oth­er type of cul­ture.” Prod­ded by Badiou, he elab­o­rates: Psy­chol­o­gy is yet anoth­er insti­tu­tion­al­ized “form of know­ing” that makes up a dis­ci­pli­nary soci­ety, the core con­cept of his phi­los­o­phy. Foucault’s inter­view­er Badiou is now an elder states­man of French phi­los­o­phy, its “great­est liv­ing expo­nent,” writes his pub­lish­er. His most recent book doc­u­ments forty years of what he calls the “’French moment’ in con­tem­po­rary thought”—one great­ly inspired by Michel Fou­cault.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear Michel Fou­cault Deliv­er His Lec­ture on “Truth and Sub­jec­tiv­i­ty” at UC Berke­ley, In Eng­lish (1980)

Clash of the Titans: Noam Chom­sky & Michel Fou­cault Debate Human Nature & Pow­er on Dutch TV, 1971

Michel Foucault’s Con­tro­ver­sial Life and Phi­los­o­phy Explored in a Reveal­ing 1993 Doc­u­men­tary

Free Online Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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Watch Episode #3 of Cosmos with Neil deGrasse Tyson: “When Knowledge Conquered Fear” (US Viewers)

in Physics, Television | March 25th, 2014

Last week’s episode of the Cos­mos reboot saw Neil deGrasse Tyson giv­ing Fox view­ers a les­son in evo­lu­tion, a les­son that end­ed with the qui­et but emphat­ic dec­la­ra­tion: “The the­o­ry of evo­lu­tion, like the the­o­ry of grav­i­ty, is a sci­en­tif­ic fact. Evo­lu­tion real­ly hap­pened.” This week Tyson, the astro­physi­cist who directs the Hay­den Plan­e­tar­i­um, intro­duced view­ers to some sub­jects he holds near and dear: comets and grav­i­ty, the work of Edmond Hal­ley and Isaac New­ton, and how they changed our under­stand­ing of the world.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Episode #1 of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Cos­mos Reboot on Hulu (US View­ers)

Episode #2 of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Cos­mos: Explains the Real­i­ty of Evo­lu­tion (US View­ers)

Neil deGrasse Tyson on the Stag­ger­ing Genius of Isaac New­ton

Neil deGrasse Tyson Talks Aster­oid Physics & “Non New­ton­ian Solids” with Inspir­ing 9‑Year-Old Stu­dent

 

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Revered Poet Alexander Pushkin Draws Sketches of Nikolai Gogol and Other Russian Artists

in Literature | March 24th, 2014

pushkin sketch of gogol

Ask an Amer­i­can or an Eng­lish­man who the best Russ­ian poet is, and they’ll gen­uine­ly con­sid­er the ques­tion. The same query, when posed to a Russ­ian, invari­ably yields a sin­gle answer: Alexan­der Pushkin. While his rep­u­ta­tion pos­sess­es a cer­tain renown amid some rar­efied lit­er­ary cir­cles in the West, in Rus­sia, Pushkin is wor­shipped: ele­men­tary school stu­dents mem­o­rize his vers­es, and one would be hard pressed to find a per­son igno­rant of Eugene Onegin’s plot.

By exten­sion, Pushkin’s sketch­es — so beloved in Rus­sia that they’ve been com­piled and pub­lished numer­ous times — remain almost unheard of else­where. Above we’ve includ­ed a sim­ple draw­ing that the poet sketched of the great Russ­ian writer, Niko­lai Gogol. In the fol­low­ing image, below, Pushkin depict­ed anoth­er autho­r­i­al con­tem­po­rary: Alek­sander Gri­boe­dov, whose Woe from Wit remains a Russ­ian clas­sic.

Griboedov

Fur­ther down is the poet him­self, all curls and side­burns, in a self-por­trait that dates from some­where between 1827 and 1830.

pushkin

Pushkin would fre­quent­ly jot down these charm­ing black and white sketch­es both in his per­son­al writ­ings, and in the mar­gins of his man­u­scripts. The final image, a page from Eugene One­gin, is a ter­rif­ic exam­ple of his note­books. Along­side the text, Pushkin includ­ed a sketch of a well-known Russ­ian painter and aris­to­crat, with whom the author was cer­tain­ly acquaint­ed: Count Fyo­dor Petro­vich Tol­stoy (not to be con­fused with the Leo Tol­stoy).

tolstoy

Ilia Blin­d­er­man is a Mon­tre­al-based cul­ture and sci­ence writer. Fol­low him at @iliablinderman, or read more of his writ­ing at the Huff­in­g­ton Post.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The His­toric Meet­ing Between Dick­ens and Dos­to­evsky Revealed as a Great Lit­er­ary Hoax

George Saun­ders’ Lec­tures on the Russ­ian Greats Brought to Life in Stu­dent Sketch­es

Stephen Fry Pro­files Six Russ­ian Writ­ers in the New Doc­u­men­tary Russia’s Open Book

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