music

Interview with Poet and Professor Philip Metres

by Kathryn Beaton October 1, 2018

Our new Fulcrum Community Manager, Emma DiPasquale, studied under our author Philip Metres at John Carroll University. Below, she interviews him about his new book The Sound of Listening: Poetry as Refuge and Resistance, which was released in September. He also will be visiting Ann Arbor to read (with author Aimee Bender) on November 15. You join over a hundred other poets who have contributed to the Poets on Poetry series. What drew you to it? When I was in graduate school researching poets and the peace movement, I first encountered the series through volumes by the poet William Stafford: You […]

Call for Submissions: “Music and Social Justice” Series

by Kathryn Beaton October 11, 2017

From Plato to Public Enemy, people have debated the relationship between music and justice—rarely arriving at much consensus over the art form’s ethics and aesthetics, uses and abuses, virtues and vices. So what roles can music and musicians play in agendas of justice? And what should musicians and music scholars do if—during moments of upheaval, complacency, ennui—music ends up seemingly drained of its beauty, power, and relevance? University of Michigan Press is proud to announce a new series, Music and Social Justice. Across academic and trade presses, this is the first (and long overdue) series calling for work in music […]

Interview: Francesca Coppa, “The Fanfiction Reader: Folk Tales for the Digital Age”

by Kathryn Beaton August 29, 2017

Our author Francesca Coppa recently answered questions from our editorial director, Mary Francis, about her new book The Fanfiction Reader: Folk Tales for the Digital Age. When I first got the manuscript for this book I couldn’t stop reading: some of these writers are just great storytellers. Was it hard to choose among the fanfic you know and love? Oh, it was brutal, actually; there’s so much terrific fanfiction out there you wouldn’t believe it. And there’s no way anyone can read all of it. So I had to set rules very quickly. Length was a big one: these stories […]

Remembering the 1967 Detroit Riot, part 3: “Serving their interests and needs”

by Brian Matzke July 17, 2017

“Serving their interests and needs”: The failures of Detroit’s public institutions The Rise and Fall of an Urban School System Detroit, 1907-81, Second Edition Jeffrey Mirel Faith in the City Preaching Radical Social Change in Detroit Angela D. Dillard 9226 Kercheval The Storefront that Did Not Burn, With a New Preface Nancy Milio Grit, Noise, and Revolution The Birth of Detroit Rock ‘n’ Roll David A. Carson Right up until the riot, Mayor Jerome Cavanagh and other city officials promoted Detroit as a “model city” for urban renewal and positive race relations. But beneath the surface, demographic changes were undermining […]

Remembering the 1967 Detroit Riot, part 2: “Be calm and as quiet as possible”

by Brian Matzke July 12, 2017

“Be calm and as quiet as possible”: Rebellion on the television Grand River and Joy Susan Messer TV Land–Detroit Gordon Castelnero The Detroit Tigers Reader Tom Stanton, Editor Violence in the Model City Sidney Fine Susan Messer’s novel Grand River and Joy begins on Halloween 1966. Harry Levine arrives at his wholesale shoe warehouse in downtown Detroit to find an ethnic slur soaped on his window. Searching the basement for supplies to clean the window, he discovers a makeshift living room with a stash of marijuana and black power literature, left there by Alvin, the teenaged tenant who lives in the apartment […]

← Previous Entries