Photo courtesy of Pitchfork
Performance Studies Associate Professor Alexandra T. Vazquez's book The Florida Room, has been named one of the 15 Best Music Books of 2022 by Pitchfork!
Pitchfork Associate Editor Cat Zhang said of The Florida Room, "The “Florida room”—also known as a sunroom or a solarium—is a glass-walled living space at the back of the main home that serves as a middle ground between the indoors and outdoors. NYU professor Alexandra T. Vazquez uses this off-center social zone as a guiding metaphor in The Florida Room, theorizing her vibrant book about the musics of Miami as “a spatial imaginary, a vestibule, an addition to the main house of writings about place.” As Vazquez identifies unexpected resonances and collaborations—snaking her way through singer Betty Wright, the Indigenous rock group Tiger Tiger, and Miami bass’s Luke Skyywalker Records—her prose is lively and darting, as if refusing to let a central narrative congeal. It's a loving and rich account of somewhere that exists both in real life and the imagination, too abundant to be contained."
Congratulations Professor Vazquez!