Related Guides
"La Vie en Rose", performed by Edith Piaf, from album Favorite Songs (Music & Performing Arts database)
- Music & Performing Arts (Audio & Video Collections) This link opens in a new window Music & Performing Arts' collections include American Music, Classical, Contemporary World, Jazz, Popular, Smithsonian's Global Sound, Ethnographic Sound Archives, American Film Scripts, Asian American Drama, Black Drama, North American Drama, and Theatre in Context. Search results include links to the full text of the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Online (1997-2001), with additional audio examples.
Featured Resources
- Music & Performing Arts (Audio & Video Collections) This link opens in a new window Music & Performing Arts' collections include American Music, Classical, Contemporary World, Jazz, Popular, Smithsonian's Global Sound, Ethnographic Sound Archives, American Film Scripts, Asian American Drama, Black Drama, North American Drama, and Theatre in Context. Search results include links to the full text of the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Online (1997-2001), with additional audio examples.
Édith Piaf: A Cultural History by
The world-famous French singer Edith Piaf (1915-63) was never just a singer. Dozens of biographies of her, of variable quality, have seldom got beyond the well known and usually contested "facts" of her life. This book suggests new ways of understanding her. A "cultural history" of Piaf meansexploring her cultural, social and political significance as a national and international icon, looking at her shifting meanings over time, at home and abroad. How did she become a star and a myth? What did she come to mean in life and in death? At the centenary of her birth and more than fiftyyears after her passing, why do we still remember her work and commemorate her through the work of others, from Claude Nougaro and Elton John to Ben Harper and Zaz, as well as in films, musicals, documentaries and tribute acts around the world? What does she mean today?The book proposes the notion of an imagined Piaf. To a large extent, she was her own invention, not only by virtue of her talent but because she produced narratives about herself, building a mystery. But she was also the invention of others: of those she worked with but above all of her audiences,who made their own meanings from her carefully staged performances. Since her death, the world has been free to imagine new Piafs. From the 1930s until today, she has variously embodied conceptions of the "popular" and of "chanson" as a new kind of middlebrow, of gender, sexuality, national identityand the human condition.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2015
Imagining the Popular in Contemporary French Culture by
This book is about what 'popular culture' means in France, and how the term's shifting meanings have been negotiated and contested. It offers an informed study of the way that popular culture is lived, imagined, fought over and negotiated in modern and contemporary France. It covers a wide range of overarching concerns: the roles of state policy, the market, political ideologies, changing social contexts and new technologies in the construction of the popular. But it also provides a set of specific case studies showing how popular songs, stories, films, TV programmes and language styles have become indispensable elements of 'culture' in France.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2013The French in Love and War: popular culture in the era of the World Wars by From the bloodbaths of World War I to the military defeat and Nazi occupation of World War II, this text shows how the citizens of France discovered ways to cope. It explains how the nation found reassurance and relief through songs, films and images of ordinary people.
Location: Mugar Stacks DC33.7 .R397 1997Publication Date: 1997
Made in France: Studies in Popular Music by
Made in France: Studies in Popular Music serves as a comprehensive introduction to the history, sociology, and musicology of contemporary French popular music. The volume consists of essays by scholars of French popular music, and covers the major figures, styles, and social contexts of pop music in France. The book first presents a general description of the history and background of popular music in France, followed by essays that are organized into thematic sections: The Mutations of French Popular Music During the "Trente Glorieuses"; Politicising Popular Music; Assimilation, Appropriation, French Specificity; and From Digital Stakes to Cultural Heritage: French Contemporary Topics. Contributors: Christian B¿une Juliette Dalbavie G¿me Guibert Fabien Hein Olivier Julien Marc Kaiser Barbara Lebrun David Looseley St¿anie Molinero Anne Petiau C¿le Pr¿st-Thomas Vincent Rouz¿/P> Catherine Rudent Matthieu Saladin Jedediah Sklower Rapha¿Suire Florence Tamagne
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2017
