Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: New Books in Sociology
Episode: Joseph Straus, "Cultural Narratives of Old Age in the Lives, Work, and Reception of Old Musicians" (Routledge, 2024)
Description: Cultural Narratives of Old Age in the Lives, Work, and Reception of Old Musicians (Routledge, 2024) discusses the creative work of old musicians—composers, performers, listeners, and scholars—and how those forms of music- making are received and understood. Joseph Straus argues that composing oldly, performing oldly, and listening oldly are distinctive and valuable ways of making music—a difference, not a deficit; to be celebrated, not ignored or condemned. This book follows Age Studies in seeing old age through a cultural lens, as something created and understood in culture. Straus’ text seeks to identify the ways that old musicians (composers...