Dear colleagues,
I am thrilled to announce the publication of my monograph, Singing the News of Death - Execution Ballads in Europe 1500-1900, published by Oxford University Press: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/singing-the-news-of-death-9780197551851?lang=en&cc=us#<https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fglobal.oup.com%2Facademic%2Fproduct%2Fsinging-the-news-of-death-9780197551851%3Flang%3Den%26cc%3Dus%23&data=05%7C01%7Cuna.mcilvenna%40ANU.EDU.AU%7C6e4d5029cda24677514908da49b5fc4a%7Ce37d725cab5c46249ae5f0533e486437%7C0%7C0%7C637903343367493103%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=zW7BtXZAzOw4%2B8fJsg771RMcirJTUoYQKPePq%2FBox1s%3D&reserved=0>
The publisher is offering 30% off when you order online at www.oup.com with promotion code AAFLYG6. Please ask your library to order a copy!
An overview of the book:
Across Europe, from the dawn of print until the early twentieth century, the news of crime and criminals' public executions was printed in song form on cheap broadsides and pamphlets to be sold in streets and marketplaces by ballad-singers. Singing the News of Death: Execution Ballads in Europe 1500-1900 looks at how and why song was employed across Europe for centuries as a vehicle for broadcasting news about crime and executions, exploring how this performative medium could frame and mediate the message of punishment and repentance. Examining ballads in English, French, Dutch, German, and Italian across four centuries, author Una McIlvenna offers the first multilingual and longue durée study of the complex and fascinating phenomenon of popular songs about brutal public death.
Ballads were frequently written in the first-person voice, and often purported to be the last words, confession or 'dying speech' of the condemned criminal, yet were ironically on sale the day of the execution itself. Musical notation was generally not required as ballads were set to well-known tunes. Execution ballads were therefore a medium accessible to all, regardless of literacy, social class, age, gender or location. A genre that retained extraordinary continuities in form and content across time, space, and language, the execution ballad grew in popularity in the nineteenth century, and only began to fade as executions themselves were removed from the public eye. With an accompanying database of recordings, Singing the News of Death brings these centuries-old songs of death back to life.
Reviews:
“The execution ballad was a distinctive sub-genre of cheap publishing from the first century of print to the nineteenth century, and in this definitive and wide-ranging study, Una McIlvenna does full justice to its musical subtlety, emotional appeal and moral purpose. This is a fantastic book, wide-ranging and authoritative, a landmark in the history of European print culture and balladeering." -- Andrew Pettegree, University of St Andrews
“McIlvenna’s approach opens a new and important avenue for more comparative cultural work that tracks popular print culture across state, language, and social boundaries. A must-read for scholars and students of the ballad, and attractive for students interested in the development of horror as a genre, it is also an important resource for scholars working on the psychology of crime." -- Dr. Angela McShane, University of Warwick
“"With extraordinary erudition, Una McIlvenna provides an original, ambitious, and fascinating investigation into a now-vanished genre of print—the execution ballad.” -- Patricia Fumerton, Distinguished Professor of English, University of California, Santa Barbara
“A vividly illustrated analysis in which music, pictures and texts in multiple languages bring life to five centuries of crimes and punishments through songs." -- Éva Guillorel, Université Rennes 2, Institut universitaire de France
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Part I: Selling the news of death
Chapter One: The significance of contrafactum or, how melody made meaning
Chapter Two: The centrality of shame in the punishment ritual
Chapter Three: Fake news? How execution ballads walked the line between truth and fiction
Part II: Crimes that Feature in Execution Ballads
Chapter Four: The Devil's business: religion, witchcraft, sorcery, possession
Chapter Five: How ballads portrayed murder and violence
Chapter Six: Political executions in song
Chapter Seven: Outlaw ballads: fantasy vs reality
Chapter Eight: The end of execution ballads?
Coda: Songs about the executioner
Conclusion
All the best,
Una
Dr Una McIlvenna FRHistS
Honorary Senior Lecturer | Centre for Early Modern Studies
Australian National University | Canberra
Singing the News of Death: Execution Ballads in Europe 1500-1900
Oxford University Press, 2022
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/singing-the-news-of-death-9780197551851?lang=en&cc=us<https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fprotect-au.mimecast.com%2Fs%2Fc6orCXLKNwFX2o8W8cDKFKH%3Fdomain%3Dglobal.oup.com&data=05%7C01%7Cuna.mcilvenna%40ANU.EDU.AU%7C6e4d5029cda24677514908da49b5fc4a%7Ce37d725cab5c46249ae5f0533e486437%7C0%7C0%7C637903343367493103%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=ZjlWS3OqhkiYSYvq6jCrU9fURMZrg43bGnglJFn6QM8%3D&reserved=0>
Scandal and Reputation at the Court of Catherine de Medici
Routledge, 2016
https://www.routledge.com/Scandal-and-Reputation-at-the-Court-of-Catherine-de-Medici/McIlvenna/p/book/9781472428219<https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.routledge.com%2FScandal-and-Reputation-at-the-Court-of-Catherine-de-Medici%2FMcIlvenna%2Fp%2Fbook%2F9781472428219&data=05%7C01%7Cuna.mcilvenna%40ANU.EDU.AU%7C6e4d5029cda24677514908da49b5fc4a%7Ce37d725cab5c46249ae5f0533e486437%7C0%7C0%7C637903343367493103%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=lMhWQkObHNoJHLihM%2BNPhVzBq1kIpZ4651I0pPxE%2FIU%3D&reserved=0>
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