About this Event
ABOUT THE BOOKS
In Proust’s Songbook - Song's and their Uses, Jennifer Rushworth analyses and theorises the presence and role of songs in Marcel Proust’s novel À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time). Instead of focusing on instrumental music and large-scale forms such as symphonies and opera, as is common in Proust musical studies, Rushworth argues for the centrality of songs and lyrics in Proust’s opus. Her work analyzes the ways in which the author inserted songs at key turning points in his novel and how he drew inspiration from contemporary composers and theorists of song. Rushworth presents detailed readings of five moments of song in À la recherche du temps perdu, highlighting the songs’ significance by paying close attention to their lyrics, music, composers, and histories.
Proust's Songbook is published by Penn Press.
Read the TLS review here
Song in the Novel, edited by Jennifer Rushort, Jannah Scott and Barry Ife, investigates the variety of types of songs present in novels, from French romances, ballads, folk songs, opera, and opéra-comique, to café-concert music, blues and jazz, and more recent popular music. Throughout, literary scholars, musicologists, and cultural historians analyse novels written in a range of languages, including English, French, Italian, Russian, and Spanish. Using a range of interdisciplinary and comparative material, Song in the Novel explores the way that songs can be present in novels, from the inclusion of musical scores to broader practices of citation and allusion. It interrogates the function of song in the novel, considering its importance for plot, character, and setting. Finally, it addresses the reader's involvement in these songs - whether through immediate recognition or further research - with the result that they may participate in what Lawrence Kramer describes as a 'song pact' with the author, akin to the intimate connections between characters enabled through song in the novel.
Song in the Novel is published by Oxford University Press.
ABOUT THE EVENT
The book launch will begin with a recital in the Haldane Room and end with a wine reception in the IAS Common Ground.
Participating speakers and performers are:
Jennifer Rushworth (UCL SELCS)
Barry Ife (Guildhall School of Music & Drama)
C. M. Jackson-Houlston (Oxford Brookes University)
Cormac Newark (Guildhall School of Music & Drama)
Hannah Scott (Newcastle University)
Josh Torabi (Queen Mary University London)
Cara Curran (alto)
Melanie Jones (piano)
The book launch is a collaboration of UCL's Institute of Advanced Studies, UCL’s Centre for French and Francophone Research, the British Academy and the Guildhall School of Music & Drama.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Haldane Room, UCL Wilkins Building, Gower Street, Gower Street, London, United Kingdom
GBP 0.00
