Music was an integral part of statecraft and identity formation in the Third Reich. Structured thematically and semiotically around the Wagnerian tetralogy of the Ring cycle, Hitler’s Twilight of the Gods: Music and the Orchestration of War and Genocide in Europe (U Toronto Press, 2025) provides a sonic read of the Second World War and the Holocaust.
Alexand ... Show More
Yesterday
John Minton, "Folk Music and Song in the WPA Ex-Slave Narratives" (UP of Mississippi, 2025)
In the late 1930s, fieldworkers with the Works Progress Administration interviewed about 3,500 formerly enslaved people resulting in approximately 20,000 pages of unedited typescripts. This collection of oral histories is arguably the single greatest body of African American folk ... Show More
1h 3m
Oct 7
In The Life of a Showgirl, Taylor Swift Addresses Love, Glamour, and Grit
It’s The Pop Culture Professors, and we review Taylor Swift’s new album “The Life of a Showgirl.” We consider the album’s themes: love, nostalgia, how hard it is to be famous, and how the internet is bad. We set the songs in the context of Taylor’s wider career and public persona ... Show More
30m 55s
Oct 4
Audrey Golden, "Shouting Out Loud: Lives of the Raincoats" (Da Capo Press, 2025)
In Shouting Out Loud: Lives of The Raincoats (Da Capo Press, 2025) Audrey Golden traces the history of the iconic band The Raincoats staring of the founding by Art students Gina Birch and Ana da Silva in 1977. Since the release of their seminal early records, the band has been re ... Show More
43m 17s
May 2025
Palestinian Resistance Music & Cultural Heritage | With Legendary Composer Issa Boulos
In this episode of Quartertones, we're joined by Palestinian composer and musician, Issa Boulos who tells us about his deep connection to Jerusalem and Palestine, and how his upbringing influenced his approach to music and life. Boulos recounts his unique experiences growing up i ... Show More
1 h
Dec 2024
Richard J. Evans, "Hitler's People: The Faces of the Third Reich" (Penguin, 2024)
Richard Evans, author of the acclaimed The Third Reich Trilogy and over two dozen other volumes on modern Europe, is our preeminent scholar of Nazi Germany. Having spent half a century searching for the truths behind one of the most horrifying episodes in human history, in Hitler ... Show More
1h 5m
Mar 2025
Grzegorz Rossolinski-Liebe, "Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist: Fascism, Genocide, and Cult" (Ibidem Press, 2014)
Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist (Ibidem Verlag, 2014) is the first comprehensive and scholarly biography of the Ukrainian far-right leader Stepan Bandera and the first in-depth study of his political cult. In this fascinating book, Grzegorz Rosso ... Show More
58m 45s
Aug 26
Harald Bodenschatz et al., "Urban Planning in Nazi Germany: Attack, Triumph, Terror in the European Context, 1933–1945" (DOM, 2025)
Urban Planning in Nazi Germany: Attack, Triumph, Terror in the European Context, 1933–1945 (DOM, 2025) is edited by Uwe Altrock, Harald Bodenschatz, Victoria Grau, Jannik Noeske, Christiane Post, and Max Welch Guerra. The book includes contributions from Christian von Oppen, Pier ... Show More
56 m
Jun 2023
La musique dans les camps nazis
C’est un chapitre peu exploré dans l’histoire du XXe siècle : la musique dans les camps nazis. À travers près de 300 objets et témoignages du monde entier – instruments, partitions, dessins et photographies -, le Mémorial de la Shoah à Paris dévoile les multiples fonctions et ton ... Show More
3m 36s
Aug 2024
Metallica: Thrash Metal, Murder, and the Death of Cliff Burton
In the early days of Metallica, their bass player carried a hammer on tour and had a gun that shot knives – or so the story goes. Their former lead guitarist was a drug dealer who kept two pitbulls for protection. They were blamed when a teenager, high on LSD, murdered a man in c ... Show More
43m 27s