This book explores the postmodernist aspects of Puccini's operas and focuses on his female protagonists-Mimi, Musetta, Tosca, Butterfly, Turandot and Liu. Combining a Schenkerian analysis with dualism, I present their complementary dialogue in my analysis. Mimi focuses on the subdominant to present her futile attempts to escape from death. The subdominant in Musetta displays her attractiveness. Tosca concentrates on the submediant that presents the boundary of her world. Floria Tosca can do no harm to anyone. Yet, the diva will act out through the device of deceptive motion killing Scarpia....

Ya-Hui Cheng examines the emergence of popular music genres - jazz, rock, and hip hop - in Chinese society, covering the social underpinnings that shaped the development of popular music in China and Taiwan, from imperialism to westernization and from modernization to globalization.