Nicholas Tochka

Nicholas Tochka is an ethnographer and historian of music-making in Eastern Europe and the Americas. Since 2017 he has taught at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music at the University of Melbourne, where he is currently Head of Musicology and Ethnomusicology. His first book is Audible States: Socialist politics and popular music in Albania (Oxford University Press, 2016); his academic and popular writing has appeared in Ethnomusicology, Slavic Review, Popular Music, Feminist Review, The Conversation, and VAN. He is currently completing a monograph on rock ’n’ roll and the politics of liberalism in the Cold War United States. He plays bass, guitar, and a bit of ukulele.

'"Fear of the latent germ": Government versus artists during the Spanish Flu' by Nicholas Tochka

June–July 2020, no. 422 • 27 May 2020

In 1919 a major outbreak of pneumonic influenza threatened the livelihoods of actors and musicians throughout Australia, and forced a tense confrontation between artists and government officials in Melbourne. In contrast with the current pandemic, Australians had plenty of time to prepare. Prompted by reports from abroad of a deadly disease that was killing thousands, authorities in November 1918 ... (read more)