Theater of the Mind: Imagination, Aesthetics, and American Radio Drama

For generations, fans and critics have characterized classic American radio drama as a “theater of the mind.” This book unpacks that characterization by recasting the radio play as an aesthetic object within its unique historical context. In Theater of the Mind, Neil Verma applies an array of critical methods to more than six thousand recordings to produce a vivid new account of radio drama from the Depression to the Cold War.In this sweeping exploration of dramatic conventions, Verma investigates legendary dramas by the likes of Norman Corwin, Lucille Fletcher, and Wyllis Cooper on key programs ranging from The Columbia Workshop, The Mercury Theater on the Air, and Cavalcade of America to Lights Out!, Suspense, and Dragnet to reveal how these programs promoted and evolved a series of models of the imagination.With close readings of individual sound effects and charts of broad trends among formats, Verma not only gives us a new account of the most flourishing form of genre fiction in the mid-twentieth century but also presents a powerful case for the central place of the aesthetics of sound in the history of modern experience.

Humor & Entertainment

Verma, Neil

Radio

University of Chicago Press

For generations, fans and critics have characterized classic American radio drama as a “theater of the mind.” This book unpacks that characterization by recasting the radio play as an aesthetic object within its unique historical context. In Theater of the Mind, Neil Verma applies an array of critical methods to more than six thousand recordings to produce a vivid new account of radio drama from the Depression to the Cold War. In this sweeping exploration of dramatic conventions, Verma investigates legendary dramas by the likes of Norman Corwin, Lucille Fletcher, and Wyllis Cooper on key programs ranging from The Columbia Workshop, The Mercury Theater on the Air, and Cavalcade of America to Lights Out!, Suspense, and Dragnet to reveal how these programs promoted and evolved a series of models of the imagination. With close readings of individual sound effects and charts of broad trends among formats, Verma not only gives us a new account of the most flourishing form of genre fiction in the mid-twentieth century but also presents a powerful case for the central place of the aesthetics of sound in the history of modern experience.

Indian Sound Cultures, Indian Sound Citizenship

From the cinema to the recording studio to public festival grounds, the range and sonic richness of Indian cultures can be heard across the subcontinent. Sound articulates communal difference and embodies specific identities for multiple publics. This diversity of sounds has been and continues to be crucial to the ideological construction of a unifying postcolonial Indian nation-state. Indian Sound Cultures, Indian Sound Citizenship addresses the multifaceted roles sound plays in Indian cultures and media, and enacts a sonic turn in South Asian Studies by understanding sound in its own social and cultural contexts. 'Scapes, Sites, and Circulations' considers the spatial and circulatory ways in which sound 'happens' in and around Indian sound cultures, including diasporic cultures. 'Voice' emphasizes voices that embody a variety of struggles and ambiguities, particularly around gender and performance. Finally, 'Cinema Sound' make specific arguments about film sound in the Indian context, from the earliest days of talkie technology to contemporary Hindi films and experimental art installations. Integrating interdisciplinary scholarship at the nexus of sound studies and South Asian Studies by questions of nation/nationalism, postcolonialism, cinema, and popular culture in India, Indian Sound Cultures, Indian Sound Citizenship offers fresh and sophisticated approaches to the sonic world of the subcontinent.

Arts & Photography

Brueck, Laura

Smith,Jacob

Music

University of Michigan Press

Narrative Podcasting in an Age of Obsession

<div>It has been a decade since Serial brought the narrative podcast to the center of popular culture. In that time, there has been an enormous boom in the production of podcasts that tell stories, particularly in the fields of true crime, storytelling, history, and narrative fiction. Now that the initial glow around the medium has begun to fade, it is time to reevaluate the medium's technological, political, economic, and cultural rise, in particular what types of storytelling accompanied that rise.&nbsp; Narrative Podcasting in an Age of Obsession is the first book to look back on this prodigious body of material and attempt to make sense of it from a structural, historical, and analytical point of view. Focusing on more than 350 podcasts and other audio works released between Serial and the COVID pandemic, the book explores why so many of these podcasts seem "obsessed with obsession," why they focus not only on informing listeners but also dramatizing the labor that goes into it, and why fiction podcasts work so hard to prove they are a brand new form, even as they revive features of radio from decades gone by. This work also examines the industry's reckoning with its own implication in systemic racism, misogyny, and other forms of discrimination. Employing innovative new critical techniques for close listening--including pitch tracking software and spectrograms--Narrative Podcasting in an Age of Obsession makes a major contribution to podcast studies and media studies more broadly.</div>

Narrative Podcasting In An Age Of Obsession

Ann Arbor : University Of Michigan Press

Anatomy of Sound: Norman Corwin and Media Authorship

This collection examines the work of Norman Corwin—one of the most important, yet understudied, media authors of all time—as a critical lens to view the history of multimedia authorship and sound production. Known as the “poet laureate” of radio, Corwin is most famous for his radio dramas, which reached millions of listeners around the world and contributed to radio’s success as a mass media form in the 1930s and 1940s. But Corwin was also a pioneer in other fields, including cinema, theater, TV, and journalism. In each of these areas, he had a distinctive approach to “soundwork,” relying on inventive prerecorded and live-in-real-time atmospheric effects in the studio, among other aesthetic techniques. Exploring the range of Corwin’s work—from his World War II–era poetry and his special projects for the United Nations to his path-breaking writing for film and television—and its influence on media today, these essays underscore the political and social impact of Corwin’s oeuvre and cement his reputation as a key writer in the history of many sound media.

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

University of California Press

eCommerce is evolving, and it's making building a profitable eCommerce business harder than ever. What worked 5 years ago is now a dead end. Digital marketing today is lazy. It prioritizes paid users even though every entrepreneur knows organic users represent a much higher lifetime value. But attracting paid users is so much faster and easier, entrepreneurs are blinded by the FOMO of short-term crutches like discounting to boost sales at any cost. That cost is often non-existent retention rates which bleeds your profits and only creates more desperation for quick conversions. Most retailers end up trying to compete on price, a game you're always going to lose, and get trapped trading their time for money, the same rat race most entrepreneurs started their own business to escape. There is a way to stop micromanaging your business and focus on scaling it: you need a brand. Consumers always buy for the same reasons, whether online or offline, but eCommerce has profoundly changed buying behavior and the typical buyer's journey. In the early days of eCommerce, having a good SEO strategy and attractive website design was enough to generate sales, so brand development was largely seen as an unnecessary expense. With the economic disruption from social distancing, more demographics are shifting to online shopping, and it's accelerating eCommerce's evolution exponentially. Consumers expect a seamless experience that reflects their values and offers more than a transaction. To achieve this, what you need today is an approach that marries the customer insights and the strategic direction of branding with the tools of eCommerce. After every category has been disrupted and saturated with DTC offers, building a strong brand is quickly becoming the only way to differentiate your business amongst competitors. You need the 7C's. In Checkout: The eCommerce Branding Book, Neil Verma, a former corporate brand executive and eCommerce entrepreneur, introduces the 7C Method, an end-to-end brand strategy designed specifically for eCommerce. The result of an exhaustive study of the top 100 eCommerce brands blended with blue-chip brand secrets, it's the only branding book of its kind. And the 7C's aren't another growth hack: this is a holistic brand strategy that eliminates guesswork, optimizes resources, and gives you back your time.

Checkout: The Step-by-Step, 7C Method to Build a Dominant Ecommerce Brand

Moulton, Ren

Graphic Design

eBrandBuilders

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Verma, Neil. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Verma, Neil