Feminine Endings

Music, Gender, and Sexuality

Browse Return to Previous Page       Related Subjects All Subjects Music & Dance

by Susan McClary

University of Minnesota Press

Due/Published August 2002, 240 pages, paper

ISBN 0816641897

Availaable again (F02)

When it was originally published in 1991, Feminine Endings was immediately controversial for its intermingling of cultural criticism and musical studies, an approach that came to be called "the New Musicology." Through case studies of works ranging from the canonical--operas by Monteverdi and Bizet---to the contemporary--the performance art of Diamanda Galas and popular songs by Madonna--McClary focuses on the ways music produces images of gender, desire, pleasure, and the body, and explores the gender-based metaphors that circulate in discourse about music. The now classic work features a new introduction that discusses the critical reception it received and the debates it has inspired.

"A major book . . . [McClary's] achievement borders on the miraculous."--Village Voice

"McClary writes with a racy, vigorous, and consistently entertaining style. . . . What she has to say specifically about the music and the text is sharp, accurate, and telling; she hears what takes place musically with unusual sensitivity."--New York Review of Books