Citizenship on Catfish Row: Race and Nation in American Popular Culture
By Geoffrey Galt Harpham
University of South Carolina Press

This study reinterprets three seminal — and widely criticized — works of American culture: D. W. Griffith’s film The Birth of a Nation; Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein’s musical Show Boat; and George Gershwin, DuBose Heyward, and Ira Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess. The author looks at how each work reveals a tension between the kind of stories Americans wish to tell about themselves and the historical and social reality of race.

Cather and Opera
By David McKay Powell
LSU Press

Willa Cather referenced opera throughout her writing, counted opera stars among her close friends, and frequently attended the opera with her partner, Edith Lewis. Melding cultural history with close readings of Cather’s short stories, novels, and criticism, Cather and Opera offers the first book-length study about the significance of opera in Cather’s life and works. The author argues that Cather’s writings and the operatic repertoire both aspire to high artistic ideals and seek popular acceptance.

Benjamin Britten in Context
Edited by Vicki P. Stroeher and Justin Vickers
Cambridge University Press

This expansive volume looks at the many contexts of Benjamin Britten’s career as a composer, pianist, conductor, and educator. The contributors consider five major areas: Britten’s relationships with Peter Pears and his friends and colleagues; his place in the musical life of post-war Britain; his interactions with other composers; his work with librettists, choreographers, directors, and designers; and his socio-cultural, religious, and political environment.