Congratulations to Deborah Heckert

Posted on February 15, 2019 by Gisele Schierhorst

on the recent publication of her book Composing History: National Identities and the English Masque Revival, 1860-1920. Dr. Heckert earned her PhD from Stony Brook (and worked in the Music Library during her student days). She has taught at the University of Virginia, Utah State University and Brooklyn College-CUNY. She is currently a Lecturer in Music History and the Undergraduate Program Director for Stony Brook University’s Department of Music.

Composing History explores the ways in which topics of English history were central to conceptions of English identity, musical and otherwise, during the Victorian and Edwardian periods. Its focus is on the masque, an early modern English musico-dramatic genre that was reinvented during the Victorian period as a vehicle for nationalistic, historically-inflected popular entertainments.

The book continues the Boydell Press’s prestigious series, “Music in Britain, 1600-2000,” which “provides a forum for the best new work in the field of British music studies, placing music from the early seventeenth century to the late twentieth centuries in its social, cultural and historical contexts.”[i] It can be found in the Music Library stacks with the call number ML1713.4.H43 2018. Dr. Heckert has agreed to give a University Libraries presentation where we can hear more about her research. Details will be provided in the near future.

[i] Deborah Heckert, Composing History: National Identities and the English Masque Revival, 1860-1920 (Rochester, N.Y. : Boydell Press, 2018), ii.