AHCS

 

http://strawresearch.mcgill.ca/straw.jpg



Will Straw, PhD


Professor, Department of Art History  and Communications Studies
McGill University
853 Sherbrooke St. W.,
Montreal, Quebec H3A 2T6
Canada  

Phone: (514) 398 7667
Fax: (514) 398 7247

 william.straw@mcgill.ca

 


EDUCATION

BA, Film Studies, Carleton.
MA, Communications, McGill
Ph.D, Communications, McGill

 

AWARDS

2006.  David Thomson Award for Graduate Supervision and Teaching, McGill University


1988   Faculty of Arts Teaching Award, Carleton University


RECENT AND ONGOING PROJECTS

Print Culture and Urban Visuality site

Media and urban life in Montreal (FQRSC team grant), 2008-2010
Culture of Cities (SSHRC), 2000-2005
Documentation and Conservation of Media Arts Heritage (SSHRC), 2005-2010
Improvisation, Community and Social Practice (SSHRC), 2007-2014

Canadian Cinema book series (co-edited with Bart Beaty)
Music and Meanings book series (co-edited with  Steve Jones and Anahid Kassabian)
Culture of Cities book series (co-edited with Kieran Bonner)

 

                                               PUBLICATIONS

Books authored

Cyanide and Sin:  Visualizing Crime in 50s America.
 
New York:  PPP Publications/Andrew Roth  Gallery, 2006. 

Volumes Edited

Global Cities/Local Sites.  Co-edited with Douglas Tallack.  Melbourne:  Melbourne University Publishing/Universitas 21, 2009.  U21 Ebook.

Cultural Memory and Digital Preservation.  Special issue, vol. 15, no. 3 (August, 2009) of Convergence:  The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies.   Co-edited with Jessica Santone.

Dialogues théoriques sur la culture. 
Special issue, no. 47 (Winter, 2009) of Cahiers de recherche sociologique.  Co-edited with Anouk Belanger.

The Cambridge Companion to Rock and Pop. Co-edited by Simon Frith, Will Straw and John Street.  Chinese translation, Taiwan:  Cite Publishing, 2006.  Korean translation,  Seoul:  Hannarae Publishing House, 2005.  Spanish translation,  Barcelona:  Ediciones Robionbook, 2006.

Accounting for Culture:  Thinking Through Cultural Citizenship. Co-edited with Caroline Andrew, Monica Gattinger and Sharon Jeannotte.  Ottawa:  University of Ottawa Press, 2005.

Cities/Scenes.  Special issue, no. 22/23 of Public. Co-edited with Janine Marchessault. Toronto: Public Access/York University, 2002.

The Cambridge Companion to Rock and Pop. Co-edited by Simon Frith, Will Straw and John Street. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Canadian Identity: Region/Country/Nation. Co-edited by Caroline Andrew, Will Straw and J.-Yvon Thériault. Montreal: The Association for Canadian Studies, 1998.

Paraliterary Scandals in Canada. Special issue of Essays in Canadian Writing. No. 62. (Montreal: ECW Press, 1998).

Theory Rules: Art as Theory, Theory and Art. Toronto: University of Toronto Press/YYZ Artists Outlet: 1996. (With Jody Berland and Dave Tomas.)

Popular Music: Style and Identity. Montreal: The Centre for Research on Canadian Cultural Industries and Institutions/International Association for the Study of Popular Music, 1995. (With Stacey Johnson, Rebecca Sullivan and Paul Friedlander.)

The Music Industry in a Changing World, special issue of Cultural Studies, Vol. 5, No. 3 (London: Routledge, 1991), 137 pp. (with John Shepherd).


Articles

 

“Hawkers and Public Space:  Free Commuter Newspapers in Canada.”  In Bart Beaty, Derek Briton,  Gloria Filax and Rebecca Sullivan, eds.  How Canadians Communicate III:  Contexts of Canadian Popular Culture.  Athabasca:  AU Press, 2009, pp. 79-93.  Uncorrected proof.  

“Reinhabiting Lost Languages:  Guy Maddin’s Careful.”  In David Church, editor, Playing with Memories:  Essays on Guy Maddin.  Winnipeg:  University of Manitoba Press, 2009, pp. 58-69.

The Circulatory Turn.”  Manuscript version.  Forthcoming in The Wireless Spectrum: The Politics, Practices and Poetics of Mobile Media.  Editors: Barbara Crow, Michael Longford, Kim Sawchuk.  Digital Futures Series | University of Toronto Press – Fall 2009

"The Palace, the Terminal and the Park: Three Blocks in the Middle of Montreal."  In Will Straw and Douglas Tallack, editors.   Global Cities/Local Sites.  Melbourne:  Melbourne University Publishing/Universitas 21, 2009.  U21 Ebook.

"Soft furnishings and social forms."  Artecontexto (Madrid), vol. 22, no. 2 (2009). 
http://www.artecontexto.com/mag/022/sumario_eng.shtml

“Cities of sin, backroads of crime.”  In André Jansson and Amanda Lagerkvist, eds. Strange Spaces:  Explorations into Mediated Obscurity. Farnham, Surrey:  Ashgate, 2009, pp. 169-185.  Uncorrected proof.

'Shifting Boundaries, Lines of Descent:  Cultural Studies and Institutional Realignments in Canada,'  Reprinted in Sourayan Mookerjea, Imre Szeman and Gail Faurcshou, editors, Canadian Cultural Studies:  A Reader.  Durham, N.C.:  Duke University Press, 2009, pp. 457-471.

The Music CD and Its Ends."  Design & Culture, vol. 1, no. 1 (2009), pp. 79-92. 

"Music from the wrong place:  On the Italianicity of Quebec Disco."  Criticism, vol. 50, no. 1 (Winter, 2008), pp. 113-132.

"Squawkies and Talkies" Parallax, vol. 4, no. 2 (2008), pp. 20-30.

"Screens and Extremes."  In Pierre Tremblay and Louise Poissant, eds., Prolifération des écrans/Proliferation of screens.  Montreal:  Presses de l'université du Québec, 2008, pp. 405-410.

“Characterizing Rock Music Culture:  The Case of Heavy Metal.” (Reprint.)  In Michael Ryan, ed., Cultural Studies:  An Anthology.  Boston:  Blackwell, 2008. 

“Documentary Realism and the Post-War Left.”  In Frank Krutnik, Steve Neale, Brian Neve and Peter Stanfield, editors.  Unamerican Hollywood:  Politics and Film in the Blacklist Era.  New Brunswick, N.J.:  Rutgers University Press,2008, pp. 130-141

(With Richard Sutherland). "The Canadian Music Industry at a Crossroads." In David Taras, Frits Pannekoek, and Maria Bakardjieva, editors. How Canadians Communicate II: Media, Globalization and Identity. Calgary, Alberta: University of Calgary Press, 2007, pp. 141-165.

"Letters of introduction:  Film credits and cityscapes."  www.logocities.org symposium papers.

"Embedded Memories." In Charles Acland, editor. Residual Media. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007, pp. 3-15.

"Systems of Articulation, Logics of Change: Scenes and Communities in Popular Music." Reprinted in Ken Gelder, editor, The Subcultures Reader. 2nd Edition. London: Routledge, 2005.

Pathways of Cultural Movement." In Caroline Andrew, Monica Gattinger, Sharon Jeannotte and Will Straw, editors. Accounting for Culture: Thinking Through Cultural Citizenship. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2005, pp. 183-197.

”Les voies du mouvement culturel."  Sociologie et Sociétés, vol. XXXVII, no. 1 (Spring, 2005), pp. 197-215.

"Cultural Scenes.Loisir et société/Society and Leisure, vol. 27, no. 2 (Autumn, 2004), pp. 411-422.

"Traffic in Scandal: The Case of Broadway Brevities." University of Toronto Quarterly, vol. 73, no. 4 (Fall, 2004), pp. 947-971.

"Ciudades de perdición: la economía moral de las fronteras norteamericanas", In Alejandro Mercado Celix and Elizabeth Gutiérrez Romero, editors. Fronteras en América del Norte, Estudios Multidisciplinarios, México: CISAN-UNAM, 2004, pp. 149-160. Translated by Amelia Estévez.

"Systems of Articulation, Logics of Change: Scenes and Communities in Popular Music." Reprinted in Simon Frith, editor, Popular Music: Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies . London:  Routledge, 2004, pp. 268-288.

"The English-Canadian Recording Industry since 1970" (reprint). In Daniel J. Robinson, editor. Communication History in Canada. Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press, 2004, pp. 244-252.

"No Future? The Canadian Music Industries." In David Taras, Frits Pannekoek, Maria Bakardjieva, editors. How Canadians Communicate. Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2003, pp. 203-221.

"Estudos Culturais no Canada e nos Estados Unidos." In Itania Maria Mota Gomes and Maria Carmem Jacob de Souza, eds. Media & Cultura, Salvador: Federal University of Bahia, 2003. (Original text, translated by Jeder Janotti), pp. 13-27.

"L’industrique du disque au Québec." In Denise Lemieux, ed. Traité de la Culture. Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval, 2002. (English version here)

"Value and Velocity: The 12-inch Single as Medium and Artefact?." In Keith Negus and David Hesmondhalgh, editors, Popular Music Studies. London: Edward Arnold, 2002.

"Reinhabiting Lost Languages: Guy Maddin’s Careful." In Gene Walz, ed. Canada’s Best Features: Critical Essays on 15 Canadian Films. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2002, pp. 304-317.

"Dilemmas of Definition." In Joan Nix and Jeannette Sloniowski, editors, Slippery Pastimes: Reading the Popular in Canadian Culture. Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier University, 2002.  Manuscript version here

"Musica, industria y la economia politica." In Monica Gambrill, editor, La globalizacion y sus manifestaciones en América del Norte. Mexico City: Centro de Investigaciones sobre América del Norte, 2002, pp. 395-414.

"Scenes and Sensibilities." In Public, no. 22/23 (2002), pp. 245-257.

"In and Around Canadian Music." Journal of Canadian Studies, vol. 35, no. 3 (Fall, 2000), pp. 173-183.

"Exhausted Commodities: The Material Culture of Music." Canadian Journal of Communication, vol. 25, no. 1 (Winter, 2000), pp. 175-185.

"Proliferating Screens." Screen, vol. 41, no. 1 (Spring, 2000), pp. 115-119.

"Music as Commodity and Material Culture." In Repercussions, vol. 7-8 (Spring-Fall, 1999-2000, published 2002), pp. 147-172.

"Consumption." In Simon Frith, Will Straw and John Street, editors. The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. 53-73.

Dance Music." In Simon Frith, Will Straw and John Street, editors. The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. 158-175.

"The Political Economy of Credibility." In Tony Mitchell and Peter Doyle, editors. Changing Sounds: New Directions and Configurations in Popular Music. Sydney: University of Technology, Sydney, 2001, pp. 260-262.

"Authorship." In Bruce Horner and Thomas Swiss, eds. Key Terms in Popular Music and Culture. Malden, Mass. and Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999, pp. 199-208.

"Ornament, Entrance and the Theme Song." In Philip Broophy, ed. Cinesonic: The World of Sound in Film. North Ryde, NSW: Australian Film Television and Radio School, 1999, pp. 213-228.

"Canadian Cinema." In John Hill, Pamela Church Gibson, eds. The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 23-26.

"Dilemnas of Canadian Nationalism." In Australian-Canadian Studies, Vol 15 no. 2, Vol. 16, no. 1 (double issue), 1998, pp. 189 - 195.

'Introduction'. Essays in Canadian Writing, no. 62. Special Issue on "Paraliterary Scandals in Canada". (Fall, 1997), pp. 1-11.

"Sizing Up Record Collections: Gender and Connoisseurship in Rock Music Culture." In Sheila Whiteley, ed. Sexing the Groove: Popular Music and Gender. London: Routledge,1997, pp. 3-16.

"'Organized Disorder': The Changing Space of the Record Shop." In Steve Redhead, Derek Wynne and Justin O'Connor, eds. The Clubcultures Reader: Readings in Popular Cultural Studies. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 1997. pp. 57-65.

"Urban Confidential: The Lurid City of the 1950s." In David B. Clarke, ed. The Cinematic City. London: Routledge, 1997, pp. 110-128.

"Scenes and Communities in Popular Music." In Ken Gelder and Sarah Thornton, eds. The Subcultures Reader. London: Routledge, 1996.

"La crisis del nacionalisme cultural," in Graciela Martinez-Zalce, ed. ¿Sentenciados al aburrimiento?: Tópicos de cultura canadiense. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1996, pp. 17-29.

"Una nación según el surco discográfico: La industria de la grabación en Canadá," in Graciela Martinez-Zalce, ed. ¿Sentenciados al aburrimiento?: Tópicos de cultura canadiense. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1996, pp. 105-133.

"Sound Recording." In Michael Dorland, ed. The Cultural Industries in Canada. Toronto: James Lorimer and Company, 1996, pp. 95-117.

"Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered." In Will Straw, Jody Berland and Dave Tomas, ed. , Theory Rules: Art as Theory, Theory and Art. Toronto: University of Toronto Press/YYZ, 1996.

"Getting Down To Business: Cultural Politics and Policies in Canada," [revised version] in Benjamin D. Singer, ed. Communications in Canadian Society, Fourth Edition (Toronto: Nelson Canada, 1995), pp. 332-356 [with Jody Berland].

"The Booth, The Floor and the Wall: Dance Music and the Fear of Falling." In Will Straw, Stacey Johnson, Rebecca Sullivan and Paul Friedlander, eds. Popular Music: Style and Identity. Montreal: The Centre for Research on Canadian Cultural Industries and Institutions/International Association for the Study of Popular Music, pp. 249-254.

"In and Around The Raft" (with Marwan Hassan), in Jocelyne Doré, ed., The Raft of the Medusa (Montreal: Black Rose, 1994), pp 87-110.

'The English Canadian Recording Industry Since 1970,' in Tony Bennett, Simon Frith, Larry Grossberg, John Shepherd and Graeme Turner (eds.) Rock and Popular Music: Politics, Policies, Institutions (London, Routledge, 1993), pp. 52-65.

'Characterizing Rock Music Culture: The Case of Heavy Metal.' Reprinted in Simon During, editor, The Cultural Studies Reader (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 368-381.

"Popular Music and Post-Modernism in the 1980s." Reprinted in Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin, editors, Sound and Vision (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 3-21.

'Shifting Boundaries, Lines of Descent: Cultural Studies and Institutional Realignments in Canada,' in Valda Blundell, and Ian Taylor (eds.) Relocating Cultural Studies: New Directions in Theory and Research (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 86-102.

'Montreal Confidential: Notes on an Imagined City,"  CineAction, No. 28 (Spring, 1992), pp. 58-64.

'Systems of Articulation, Logics of Change: Scenes and Communities in Popular Music,' Cultural Studies, Vol. 5, No. 3 (October, 1991) 361-375.

'Getting Down To Business: Cultural Politics and Policies in Canada,' in Benjamin Singer (ed.) Communications in Canadian Society (Scarborough: Nelson Canada, 1991), pp. 276-294 (with Jody Berland).

'The Myth of Total Cinema History,' in Ron Burnett (ed.) Explorations in Film Theory (Bloomington, Indiana: University of Indiana Press, 1991), pp. 237-246.

'Music video in its contexts: popular music and post-modernism in the 1980s,' reprinted in Japanese collection of articles on music video, title and publication data untranscribable (Ongaku No Tomo Sha Corporation, 1990).

'Heavy Metal,' reprinted in Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin (eds.) On Record (New York: Pantheon Books, 1989), pp. 97-110.

'Rock For Ethiopia,' in Simon Frith (ed.) World Music, Politics and Social Change (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1989) pp. 204-209.

'Radio and Sound Recording Policy in Canada,' Australian-Canadian Studies, Vol. 7, Nos. 1-2 (1989), pp. 163-166 (with Karyna Laroche).

'Music video in its contexts: popular music and post-modernism in the 1980s,' Popular Music 7 (1988), pp. 247-266.

'The Discipline of Forms: Mannerism in Recent Cinema,' Cultural Studies, 1 (October, 1987), pp. 361-376.

'Teaching Critical Media Analysis,' Canadian Journal of Communications, Vol. ll, No. l (Winter, 1985), pp. 5-16.

'Rock Music and Rock Music Cultures,' Canadian University Music Review, Vol. 5 (1984), pp. 104-122.

'The Myth of Total Cinema History,' Cine-Tracts No. 9 (Winter, 1980), pp. 8-16.

'Semiotics and Communications Studies: Points of Contact,' in Progress in Communications Studies, Vol. III (Norwood, N. J.: Ablex Publishing Company, 1983) pp. 91-114 (with G. J. Robinson).


Encyclopedia Articles

'Scene'. Continuum Encycopedia of Music of the World. Vol. 1. London, New York: Continuum Publications, 2003, pp. 349-250.

 'Television' (with Richard Peterson, Dave Laing). Continuum Encycopedia of Music of the World. Vol. 1. London, New York: Continuum Publications, 2003, pp. 471-474.

 'Single' (with Keir Keightley.) Continuum Encycopedia of Music of the World. Vol. 1. London, New York: Continuum Publications, 2003, pp. 779-780.

"The Music Industry" (with David Sanjek). The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Volume 3 (New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 2001), pp. 256-267.

'Discotheques,' entry in The Encyclopedia of Music in Canada, 2nd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992).

'The Canadian Recording Industry,' entry in The Encyclopedia of Music in Canada, 2nd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992) (with Edward Moogk).

'The Social Phenomenon of Music,' entry in The Encyclopedia of Music in Canada, 2nd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992) (with Line Grenier, Jocelyn Guilbaut and John Shepherd).

'The Music Industries in Canada,' entry in The Encyclopedia of Music in Canada, 2nd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992) (with Jody Berland).  

Published Translations (French to English)

Sarak Kofman. Camera Obscura: Of Ideology. London: Athlone Press, 1998 and Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1998.

Christine Buci-Glucksmann, "Configurations of the Gaze," in Christine Davis (exhibition catalogue) (Guelph and Ivry-sur-Seine: Centre d'Art Contemporain/Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, 1993), pp. 55-61.

Sarak Kofman, 'Camera Obscura of Ideology,' in Public, No. 7 (1993), pp. 153-170.

'Interview with Michel Brault,' in Cinetracts, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Spring, 1980), pp. 37-48.

Louise Carrière, 'Quebec Film 1966-1980: An Historical Overview,' in Cinetracts, Vol. 4, No. 4 (Winter, 1982), pp. 36-51.

Boris Eizykman, 'Chance and Science-Fiction: SF As Stochastic Fiction,' in Science-Fiction Studies, Vol. 10, No. 1 (March, 1983), pp. 24-34.

Articles in non-refereed journals, miscellaneous scholarly publications

"Touchstones: The Comfort Suite." Catalog essay. In Dan Ring, Curator, Antipathies & Correspondences: Rae Staseson, Linda Duvall, Joanne Bristol. Saskatchewan: Mendel Art Gallery, 2001, pp. 9-13.

"Esquivel, Yé-Yé and Me." Vice-Versa, no. 53 (Autumn, 1996), pg. 45.

"Post-Referendary Positions: A Dossier." Public no. 14 (1996), pp. 134-139.

"Does the Cinema have a Future?" Catalogue essay, Cinq journées du cinéma indépndant, Mainfilm, Montreal, November, 1994.

"Organized Disorder: The Changing Space of the Record Shop." Fuse vol. xvii, nos. 5-6 (1994), pp. 27-31.

"The Booth, The Floor and the Wall: Dance Music and the Fear of Falling," in Public, no. 8 (1993), pp. 169-182.

'Popular Culture and Youth Culture in a Canadian Context,' in Youth Policy, Action, Theory, Research (Ottawa: Canadian Council on Social Development, 1987), pp. 22-35.

'Heavy Metal,' Impulse, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Summer, 1985), pp. 38-40.

'Representational Features of Media Coverage in the Quebec Referendum Campaign,' Working Papers in Communications Vol. 3 (Montreal: McGill University Graduate Program in Communications, 1981)

Review Articles

"Review Essay: Popular Music and Local Identity and Global Pop: World Music, World Markets," Perfect Beat, vol. 4, no. 1 (July, 1998), pp. 106-111.

Commentary on Antoine Hennion, La passion musicale: une sociologie de la médiation. Section débats. Etudes littéraires, vol. 27, no. 3 (Winter, 1995), pp. 139-142.

'Review Article,' reviewing Simon Frith, Music for Pleasure, Simon Frith, ed., Facing the Music; Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin, eds, On Record: Rock, Pop and The Written Word; Peter Wicke, Rock Music: Culture, Aesthetics and Sociology in Canadian University Music Review, Vol. 10,. No. 2 (1990) pp. 157-161.

'Science Fiction in Popular Culture,' in Science-Fiction Studies, Vol. 8, No. 2 (July, 1981), pp. 222-223.

'What's Wrong With SF Film Criticism?' in Science-Fiction Studies, Vol. 7, No. 3 (November, l980), pp. 344-345.

'Two Special Issues on SF Cinema,' in Science-Fiction Studies, Vol. 7, No. 3 (November, 1980), pp. 345-346.