As a material link between body and culture, self and other, the voice has been endlessly fascinating to artists and critics. Yet it is the voices of women that have inspired the greatest fascination, as well as the deepest ambivalence, because the female voice signifies sexual otherness as well as sexual and cultural power. Embodied Voices explores cultural manifestations of female vocality in the light of current theories of subjectivity, the body and sexual difference. The fourteen essays collected here examine a wide spectrum of discourses, including myth, literature, music, film, psychoanalysis, and critical theory. Though diverse in their critical approaches, the essays are united in their attempt to articulate the compelling yet problematic intersections of gender, voice, and embodiment as they have shaped the textual representation of women and women's self-expression in performance.

During the first half of the twentieth century, American Jews demonstrated a commitment to racial justice as well as an attraction to African American culture. Until now, the debate about whether such black-Jewish encounters thwarted or enabled Jews' claims to white privilege has focused on men and representations of masculinity while ignoring questions of women and femininity. The White Negress investigates literary and cultural texts by Jewish and African American women, opening new avenues of inquiry that yield more complex stories about Jewishness, African American identity, and the meanings of whiteness. Lori Harrison-Kahan examines writings by Edna Ferber, Fannie Hurst, and Zora Neale Hurston, as well as the blackface performances of vaudevillian Sophie Tucker and controversies over the musical and film adaptations of Show Boat and Imitation of Life. Moving between literature and popular culture, she illuminates how the dynamics of interethnic exchange have at once produced and undermined the binary of black and white.

An investigation of sexual themes in electronic music since the 1950s, with detailed case studies of “electrosexual music” by a wide range of creators. In Sex Sounds, Danielle Shlomit Sofer investigates the repeated focus on sexual themes in electronic music since the 1950s. Debunking electronic music’s origin myth—that it emerged in France and Germany, invented by Pierre Schaeffer and Karlheinz Stockhausen, respectively—Sofer defines electronic music more inclusively to mean any music with an electronic component, drawing connections between academic institutions, radio studios, experimental music practice, hip-hop production, and histories of independent and commercial popular music. Through a broad array of detailed case studies—examining music that ranges from Schaeffer’s musique concrète to a video workshop by Annie Sprinkle—Sofer offers a groundbreaking look at the social and cultural impact sex has had on audible creative practices. Sofer argues that “electrosexual music” has two central characteristics: the feminized voice and the “climax mechanism.” Sofer traces the historical fascination with electrified sex sounds, showing that works representing women’s presumed sexual experience operate according to masculinist heterosexual tropes, and presenting examples that typify the electroacoustic sexual canon. Noting electronic music history’s exclusion of works created by women, people of color, women of color, and, in particular Black artists, Sofer then analyzes musical examples that depart from and disrupt the electroacoustic norms, showing how even those that resist the norms sometimes reinforce them. These examples are drawn from categories of music that developed in parallel with conventional electroacoustic music, separated—segregated—from it. Sofer demonstrates that electrosexual music is far more representative than the typically presented electroacoustic canon.

When Rodgers and Hart's Pal Joey opened at the Barrymore on Christmas day, 1940, it flew in the face of musical comedy convention. The characters and situation were depraved. The setting was caustically realistic. Its female lead was frankly sexual and yet not purely comic. A narratively-driven dream ballet closed the first act, begging audiences to take seriously the inner life and desires of a confirmed heel. Pal Joey: The History of a Heel presents a behind-the-scenes look at the genesis, influence, and significance of this classic musical comedy. Although the show appears on many top-ten lists surveying the Golden Age, it is a controversial classic; its legacy is tied both to the fashionable scandal that it provoked, and, retrospectively, to the uncommon attention it paid to characterization and narrative cohesion. Through an archive-driven investigation of the show and its music, author Julianne Lindberg offers insight into the historical moment during which Joey was born, and to the process of genre classification, canon formation, and the ensuing critical debates related to musical and theatrical maturity. More broadly, the book argues that the critique and commentary on class and gender conventions in Pal Joey reveals a uniquely American concern over status, class mobility, and progressive gender roles in the pre-war era.

You can go to a mirror to find our how your body is doing, but how can you get a picture of your soul? A Well-Tended Soul holds a mirror up to your life for a refreshing, unabashedly feminine look at spiritual formation. Valerie Bell shows how to start building a life of incredible richness as you become more internally focused, forming your soul to God's own heart. A well-tended soul is a woman's beautifier. Soul-care weeds out what is malignant and false and builds in what is lovely, worthy, and redemptive. With refreshing candor, empathy, and earthiness, Bell uses her own experiences to help you - Live a deeper, more genuinely connected life - Pursue your truest dreams - Shape the world around you with an authentic spirituality - Discover the power of thankfulness to uproot envy and loss - Build confidence, joy, and beauty into your life - Transcend the fears and losses of aging . . . and much more.

Because 18 Years Is a Long Time to Wait In a recent poll taken by Parents magazine, 87 percent of moms admitted they don’t make love as often as they did before having kids, while one-third confessed their love life has taken a “major nosedive.” Experts say a whopping majority of moms suffer from low libido, and many of the reasons aren’t biological. So how can you get your mojo back and start to love making love again? Get the scoop on these and other extremely hot–and often hilarious–topics, including: • Timing that works for everyone (we’re not talking the next decade) • Keeping the ankle biters in their beds when you desperately need them out of yours • Why you need to make the effort (if not for your marriage, at least for your sanity) • Reclaiming your sexual self (she’s not gone forever, but is probably sleeping every chance she gets) Lorilee Craker explores the factors that put a dent in your “lust life” and offers plenty of fun ideas for stoking the home fires again. Don’t miss Lorilee’s own “Tales from the Love Shack,” dish from other real-life moms, and insights from professionals to help you get in touch with your inner “Red Hot Mama.” Who knew that rediscovering romance, passion, and closeness with your husband was possible–or could be so much fun?

An appreciation of Rock-n-Roll, song by song, from its roots and its inspriations to its divergent recent trends. A work of rough genius; DeanOCOs attempt to make connections though time and across genres is laudable."

Eat to Defeat Menopause combines easy-to-understand health information to combat the symptoms of perimenopause and menopause with delicious and healthy recipes from both the authors and some of America's top chefs.Along with practical advice, essential information on women's health, and a healthy dose of humor, Eat to Defeat Menopause offers dietary strategies to improve sleep, hot flashes, and other menopausal symptoms; key foods for health and wellness during menopause; information on soy foods--the perfect food for menopause; dietary guidelines and healthy weight tips and more.

The study develops a new theoretical approach to the relationship between two media (jazz music and writing) and demonstrates its explanatory power with the help of a rich sampling of jazz poems. Currently, the mimetic approach to intermediality (e.g., the notion that jazz poetry imitates jazz music) still dominates the field of criticism. This book challenges that interpretive approach. It demonstrates that a mimetic view of jazz poetry hinders readers from perceiving the metaphoric ways poets rendered music in writing. Drawing on and extending recent cognitive metaphor theories (Lakoff, Johnson, Turner, Fauconnier), it promotes a conceptual metaphor model that allows readers to discover the innovative ways poets translate “melody,” “dynamics,” “tempo,” “mood,” and other musical elements into literal and figurative expressions that invite readers to imagine the music in their mind’s eye (i.e., their mind’s ear).