Joanna Bullivant
Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, Faculty of Arts
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Expertise Summary
I received my DPhil from Christ Church, University of Oxford in 2009, where I also held the posts of Lecturer in Music at Merton and University Colleges (2008-9) and Junior Research Fellow and Lecturer in Music at Worcester College (2009-10). My research interests are twentieth-century British music, music and politics, musical modernism, the Cold War and reception history. Arising from my doctoral thesis on 'Musical Modernism and Left-wing Politics in 1930s Britain' I have developed a particular interest in the English communist composer Alan Bush. At Nottingham I am engaged in research for the first critical study of the composer in the context of modern British music, entitled Alan Bush: Music and Politics in Modern Britain. My research is supported by a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship.
I have given invited presentations at the Institute of Historical Research and the Universities of Bristol, Nottingham, Oxford and Queen's, Belfast. I have also delivered conference papers nationally and internationally, including at meetings of the American Musicological Society and the North American British Music Studies Association and as part of the International Forum of Young Musicologists in Yokohama, Japan. I have published on Alan Bush in Music & Letters, and have chapters in preparation for the forthcoming Twentieth-century Music and Politics, Red Strains: Music and Communism Outside the Communist Bloc, The Cambridge Companion to Tippett and a special edition of Eisler Studien.
Research Summary
My doctoral research explored connections between musical modernism and left-wing politics in 1930s Britain, an investigation which encompassed both reception history and case-studies of specific… read more
Recent Publications
BULLIVANT, JOANNA, 2012. 'Hanns Eisler and Alan Bush'. In: DAHIN, OLIVER and LEVI, ERIK, eds., Eisler and England Breitkopf & Härtel. (In Press.)
BULLIVANT, JOANNA, 2012. 'Black, White and Red: Communism and Anti-colonialism in Alan Bush’s The Sugar Reapers'. In: ADLINGTON, ROBERT, ed., Red Strains: Music and Communism outside the Communist Bloc The British Academy. (In Press.)
BULLIVANT, JOANNA, 2012. ‘“A world of Marxist orthodoxy”? Alan Bush's Wat Tyler in Great Britain and the German Democratic Republic’. In: FAIRCLOUGH, PAULINE, ed., Twentieth-century Music and Politics Ashgate. (In Press.)
BULLIVANT, JOANNA, 2012. 'Tippett and Politics'. In: GLOAG, KENNETH and JONES, NICHOLAS, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Tippett Cambridge University Press. (In Press.)
Current Research
My doctoral research explored connections between musical modernism and left-wing politics in 1930s Britain, an investigation which encompassed both reception history and case-studies of specific composers and works. Arising from this project, I have developed wide-ranging research interests in music and politics, musical modernism and politically engaged composers of the 1930s, particularly Alan Bush, Benjamin Britten, Michael Tippett and Hanns Eisler.
Following on from my doctoral work, my current research project examines a key case-study of music and politics in modern Britain: the English communist composer, Alan Bush (1900-1995). The first critical study of the composer, this project challenges existing perceptions of Bush as a propagandist and marginalised outsider in Britain. Drawing on only recently available archival material, I evaluate Bush's importance as, among other things, a leading figure in music and politics in 1930s Britain, an exponent (like Britten and Tippett) of modern British opera, a British communist with extensive links to East Germany, and an intriguing case-study of the experience of communists working with British institutions during the Cold War. By examining Bush's relationship to so many wider issues in modern Britain, this study not only provides a new, informed portrait of Bush, but also invites new scrutiny of British music history in the middle years of the twentieth century. In addition to my main project, I have articles in progress on communism and anti-colonialism in opera, Hanns Eisler in England, Tippett and politics, East German reception of Bush's opera Wat Tyler, and Britten's Our Hunting Fathers. I also have a secondary research interest in music and the contemporary Catholic Church, which has led to a recent co-authored article on music and the Second Vatican Council for Pastoral Review.