{"id":2996,"date":"2022-12-03T16:30:57","date_gmt":"2022-12-03T21:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bourdaghs.com\/blog\/?p=2996"},"modified":"2022-12-03T16:30:57","modified_gmt":"2022-12-03T21:30:57","slug":"a-book-prize-for-sound-alignments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bourdaghs.com\/blog\/?p=2996","title":{"rendered":"A Book Prize for “Sound Alignments”"},"content":{"rendered":"

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    Last month brought a bit of very welcome news: the Society for Ethnomusicology has awarded the 2022 Ellen Koskoff Edited Volume Prize<\/a> to Sound Alignments: Popular Music in Asia’s Cold Wars<\/a><\/em>, which I co-edited with Paole Iovene and Kaley Mason. As someone who studies popular music without being an ethnomusicologist, this recognition feels especially meaningful. We had a terrific team of contributors to the volume, and I am delighted to see their valuable work acknowledged with this prize.<\/p>\n

    Here is the encomium that was read at the presentation ceremony:<\/p>\n

    The committee to award the 2022 Ellen Koskoff Edited Volume Prize included Deonte Harris, Victoria Levine, Jes?s Ramos-Kittrell, and Margaret Sarkissian. After carefully considering eight excellent nominees, we decided to award the prize to Sound Alignments: Popular Music in Asia?s Cold War<\/em>, edited by Michael K. Bourdaghs, Paola Iovene, and Kaley Mason. Sound Alignments<\/em> challenges us to rethink global history through investigations of the complex interplay between music and geopolitics. The contributors foreground musical routes, covers, and fronts, re-telling the Cold War from the orientation of musicians and particular songs that circulated across Asia. The authors reveal fascinating contradictions between economic, class, and social alignments through detailed analysis of both lyrics and musical structures in Asian popular songs. This is a beautifully crafted, edited, and produced volume. Annotated with scholarship in multiple non-European languages, the book has an extensive bibliography, a sturdy index, and informative contributor bios. Many of the authors work outside of US institutions, creating an international and disciplinary diversity that enhances the editors? stated goal of decolonizing scholarship on Asian music. Sound Alignments<\/em> offers critical perspectives on the position of music in Cold War studies, the narrow view that ethnomusicology has advanced, and intellectual blind spots that have driven music studies in this area. With rich ethnographic detail, theoretical sophistication, and broad content, Sound Alignments<\/em> sets new standards for the study of music in the context and afterlife of global conflict. Congratulations to the editors and contributors!?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n