Joseph N. Straus is Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and is the author of numerous books and articles. His previous book, Extraordinary Measures (Oxford UP, 2011) established him as the leading figure in the study of music in relationship to disability. He is a former president of the Society for Music Theory.

Winner of the 2020 Wallace Berry Award from the Society for Music Theory

"Straus (Graduate Center, CUNY) offers an impressive synthesis of disability studies, musicology, and music theory in this fascinating monograph. His expertise in the concert repertoire from the modernist era, reenergized and reimagined through the lens of disability, illuminates the music with new meaning and resonance...A very helpful, well-produced companion website offers in-depth video analysis (captioned) of each musical example discussed in the book... Summing Up: Highly Recommended" -- CHOICE

"Joe Straus's work in disability studies in music remains seminal, and this book certainly confirms that fact by breaking new terrain yet again."--Bruce W. Quaglia, Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Theory, University of Minnesota

"Joseph Straus makes a convincing argument for thinking of modernist musical works as relying on a disability aesthetic. Learned, comprehensive, and eclectic, this book makes a major contribution to music history and theory as well as to disability studies."-- Lennard Davis, Distinguished Professor, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Department of Disability and Human Development, University of Illinois at Chicago