Mitchell, Tony William 1949-

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MITCHELL, Tony William 1949-

PERSONAL:

Born 1949, in Palmerston North, New Zealand; son of William (a schoolteacher) and Moyra (a schoolteacher; maiden name, Ratcliff) Mitchell; married Diane Powell, December, 1994 (divorced). Ethnicity: Pakeha (NZ). Education: University of Auckland, M.A. (English), 1972; University of Bristol, Ph.D. (drama), 1976.

ADDRESSES:

Home—31 Scarborough St., Bundeena, New South Wales, 2230, Australia. Office—University of Technology, Sydney, P.O.Box 123, Broadway, New South Wales, 2007, Australia. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Educator, writer, and producer. University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, tutor, 1984-88; University of Technology, Sydney, senior lecturer, 1989-2002. Producer of radio programming.

MEMBER:

International Association for the Study of Popular Music (chairperson, 1997-99).

WRITINGS:

(With Philip Hayward and Roy Shuker) North Meets South: Popular Music in Aotearoa/New Zealand, John Libbey Publications (Sydney, Australia), 1994.

(With Andrew Jakubowicz and others) Racism, Ethnicity, and the Media, Allen & Unwin (Sydney, Australia), 1994.

High Art in a Foreign Tongue: Adelaide Ristori Tours, Australasian Drama Studies Association (Australia), 1996.

Popular Music and Local Identity: Rock, Pop, and Rap in Europe and Oceania, University of Leicester Press (New York, NY), 1996.

Dario Fo: People's Court Jester, Methuen (London, England), 1999.

(Editor) Global Noise: Rap and Hip Hop outside the USA, Wesleyan University Press (Middletown, CT) 2001.

Contributor to journals, including Popular Music, Perfect Beat, Popular Music and Society, and Theatre Journal. Contributor to books, including Alter/Asians, Our Australian Theatre in the 1990s, Dario Fo: Stage, Text and Tradition, and Screen Scores. Contributor to broadcast materials, including Dario Fo and Franca Rame: Comics of the People, ABC Radio National, 1985; Pier Paolo Pasolini: Passion and Ideology, Radio Helicon, ABC Radio National, 1987; Anna Magnani: My Life and Films, Radio Helicon, ABC Radio National, 1990; Vaclav Havel: Playwright, Political Prisoner, President, ABC Radio National Radio Helicon, 1991; and Dacia Maraini: Stravaganza, Radio Helicon, 1992.

WORK IN PROGRESS:

Editing Liminal Sounds and Images: Transnational Chinese Popular Music, and researching Australasian hip hop and the films of Clara Law.

SIDELIGHTS:

Tony Mitchell told CA: "I aim to write accessible critical academic commentaries on important figures in film, performance, and popular music who are critically neglected."

Mitchell's 1996 book Popular Music and Local Identity: Rock, Pop, and Rap in Europe and Oceania examines the global streams of contemporary music, providing case studies showing how local identity is articulated through a region's music. Mitchell considers such regions as the Czech Republic, Italy, Australia, and New Zealand, and provides information on "extramusical aspects" as well. For example, as Karl Neuenfeldt explained in Popular Music and Society, "Mitchell's analysis of the interplay of pop and politics in the Czech Republic highlights the unpredictable post-'fall of the wall' trajectory of popular music in Eastern Europe." Neuenfeldt described the book as "eclectic, well-researched, and interesting."

Mitchell covers similar ground in the collection Global Noise: Rap and Hip Hop outside the USA, which he edited. The thirteen essays explore local hip hop and rap cultures in Asia, Australia, Canada, and Europe, and examine how this music is not a simple emulation of African-American music, but a way for each culture to define itself. Subjects covered include Islamic rap in Europe, German-language rappers who are grappling with the issue of immigration, and a Chinese singer who uses the music to ask some difficult political questions. David Valencia in Library Journal found Global Noise to be an "Excellent overview of the phenomenon of rap and hip hop."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Library Journal, January, 2002, David Valencia, review of Global Noise: Rap and Hip Hop outside the USA, p. 106.

Popular Music and Society, summer, 1998, Karl Neuenfeldt, review of Popular Music and Local Identity: Rock, Pop, and Rap in Europe and Oceania, p. 129.

Reference & Research Book News, August, 1997, review of Popular Music and Local Identity, p. 132.

Times Educational Supplement, August 16, 1985, Steve Grant, "Teacher and Clown," p. 23; June 2, 1989, "Writers' Files Exposed," p. B20.