TCUP Reads: Maria Sonevytsky's Wild Music

TCUP is pleased to announce the fourth installment of its Book Club for March 2021. We will be reading Maria Sonevytsky's Wild Music: Sound and Sovereignty in Ukraine (Wesleyan University Press). 

Register here to join the club.

Book Description

What are the uses of musical exoticism? In Wild Music, Maria Sonevytsky tracks vernacular Ukrainian discourses of “wildness” as they manifested in popular music during a volatile decade of Ukrainian political history bracketed by two revolutions. From the Eurovision Song Contest to reality TV, from Indigenous radio to the revolution stage, Sonevytsky assesses how these practices exhibit and re-imagine Ukrainian tradition and culture. As the rise of global populism forces us to confront the category of state sovereignty anew, Sonevytsky proposes innovative paradigms for thinking through the creative practices that constitute sovereignty, citizenship, and nationalism.

About the Author

Dr. Sonevytsky is Assistant Professor of Music (Ethnomusicology) at the University of California, Berkeley. She received her PhD in Ethnomusicology from Columbia University in 2012, and she held postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Toronto and Harvard University. Her research interests include the legacy of Soviet cultural policies on music after socialism, folklore and nuclear experience after Chernobyl, Soviet constructions of childhood and the role of expressive culture in disciplining Soviet citizens, and the gray zones occupied by late Soviet punk culture.  

Schedule

Sonevytsky will join us for a Seminar in Ukrainian Studies on March 31, 2021, at 12 p.m. She will also hold an author Q&A exclusively for Book Club participants.  

Readers who sign up for #TCUPReadsWildMusic will receive a 35% off discount code to use while ordering the book through the press's website. 

Suggested reading schedule: 

March 1-6: Introduction 
March 7-13: Chapters 1-2 
March 14-20: Chapters 3-4 
March 21-27: Chapter 5 & Conclusion 

For Educators

For educators: TCUP is encouraging you to adopt this book or some of its chapters for your courses this semester! We will be releasing some suggestions for teaching some or all of the book, and your students are all invited to join Sonevytsky's seminar on March 31. Please contact Emily Channell-Justice, TCUP Director, if you are interested in integrating the book into your course. 

Register now!