About this Book

The Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) is more than a musical event that ostensibly "unites European people" through music. It is a spectacle and performative event, one that allegorically represents the idea of "Europe." In "Empire of Song: Europe and Nation in the Eurovision Song Contest," contributors interpret the ESC as a musical "mediascape" and mega-event that has variously performed and performs the changing visions of the European project. Through the study of the cultural politics of the ESC, essayists discuss the ways in which music operates as a dynamic nexus for making national identities and European sensibilities, generating processes of 'assimilation' or 'integration, ' and defining the celebrated notion of the 'European citizen' in a global context."