By Jenefer Robinson (NHC Fellow, 2002–03) Deeper than Reason takes the insights of modern psychological and neuroscientific research on the emotions and brings them to bear on questions about our emotional involvement with the arts. Robinson begins by laying out a theory of emotion, one that is supported by the best evidence from current empirical work … Continued
By Scott Burnham (NHC Fellow, 1998–99) It is a common article of faith that Mozart composed the most beautiful music we can know. But few of us ask why. Why does the beautiful in Mozart stand apart, as though untouched by human hands? At the same time, why does it inspire intimacy rather than distant … Continued
By Ann Douglas (NHC Fellow, 1978–79) Terrible Honesty is the biography of a decade, a portrait of the soul of a generation – based on the lives and work of more than a hundred men and women. In a strikingly original interpretation that brings the Jazz Age to life in a wholly new way, Ann … Continued
By Craig A. Monson (NHC Fellow, 1992–93) Piecing together 200 years of convent history, this engaging narrative tells the story of the nuns of Santa Cristina della Fondazza—gifted singers, instrumentalists, and composers who used music to circumvent ecclesiastical authority and to forge links with the world beyond convent walls. Craig Monson reconstructs the daily lives … Continued
By Robin D. Moore (NHC Fellow, 2004–05) Music and Revolution provides a dynamic introduction to the most prominent artists and musical styles that have emerged in Cuba since 1959 and to the policies that have shaped artistic life. Robin D. Moore gives readers a chronological overview of the first decades after the Cuban Revolution, documenting the … Continued
By Paul F. Berliner (NHC Fellow, 1996–97; 2010–11)
By Louise Meintjes (NHC Fellow, 2007–08) In Dust of the Zulu Louise Meintjes traces the political and aesthetic significance of ngoma, a competitive form of dance and music that emerged out of the legacies of colonialism and apartheid in South Africa. Contextualizing ngoma within South Africa's history of violence, migrant labor, the HIV epidemic, and the world … Continued
By Mark Evan Bonds (NHC Fellow, 1995–96; 2021–22) Before the nineteenth century, instrumental music was considered inferior to vocal music. Kant described wordless music as “more pleasure than culture,” and Rousseau dismissed it for its inability to convey concepts. But by the early 1800s, a dramatic shift was under way. Purely instrumental music was now … Continued
By Laurent Dubois (NHC Fellow, 2008–09; 2016–17) The banjo has been called by many names over its history, but they all refer to the same sound—strings humming over skin—that has eased souls and electrified crowds for centuries. The Banjo invites us to hear that sound afresh in a biography of one of America’s iconic folk instruments. Attuned … Continued
Edited by Katherine K. Preston (NHC Fellow, 2009–10), Deane L. Root, Mark Slobin, and James W. Kimball This publication is the first-ever facsimile edition of a “binder’s volume,” a personal collection of sheet music, in this case that of a nineteenth-century young woman, Emily Esperanza McKissick of Albany, New York, who must have actively used … Continued