urban lift-off amid the rural amenity economy: riverfront cities and the “Brooklynization” of the Hudson Valley
A paper presented at the “Small Cities in the 21st Century” mini-conference, in the annual meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society, Baltimore, Maryland, February 23, 2018: Urban Lift-off Amid the Rural Amenity Economy: Riverfront Cities and the “Brooklynization” of the Hudson Valley by Leonard Nevarez Vassar College ABSTRACT: What futures and fortunes await...
metro music: creativity, place and alienation in the career of Martha & the Muffins
[Presented at the University of Toronto Department of Sociology on May 1, 2015. Thanks to Judith Taylor and John Hannigan for this opportunity.] It’s a pleasure to speak today on a new research project I’m working on. In anticipation of this talk, I had a couple of other topics I could have lectured on with...
the greatest reinventions in pop-music careers, #50-41
Today I take up a question of pop-culture history: which performers made the most unexpected left turns with their careers? I farmed this question out awhile back to readers of this blog, and today I start filing the results based on my own subjective assessment. Debate and criticisms are welcome in the comment section (or,...
a Poughkeepsie school of urban studies
[This is the extended version of an essay that will be drastically reduced (1500 words?!?!) before it’s published in a new Vassar College faculty journal. For a change there’s no mention of music, although readers might notice how this discussion adds context to my other posts on music and the Hudson Valley.] In Urban Studies courses...
musical urbanism: statement of a scholarly project
It’s promotion review time for me, and in writing a research statement for the three anonymous sociologists evaluating my work, I’ve had the occasion to compile and synthesize my thinking on musical urbanism into a single essay. Think of this post as a users manual for understanding what I’ve been up to academically with this...
listening alone, together: a review of “Pop Music, Pop Culture” by Chris Rojek
British sociologist Chris Rojek has just published a major work in the social analysis of pop music. To say its argument isn’t completely satisfying doesn’t belittle the remarkable accomplishment of Pop Music, Pop Culture (Polity, 2011), which covers the gamut of musical production, content, and reception from the pre-historic oral tradition to today’s P2P networks. Most distinctively, Pop...
shameless self-promotion: “Pursing Quality of Life”
I’m pleased to announce that my new book has finally been published: Pursuing Quality of Life: From the Affluent Society to the Consumer Society. Here’s the official blurb. From anxieties over work-life balance and entangling technologies, to celebrations of cool jobs and great places to live, quality of life frames the ways we enhance our lives...