The Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) is more than a musical event that ostensibly unites European people through music. It is a spectacle: a performative event that allegorically represents the idea of Europe. Since its beginning in the Cold War era, the contest has functioned as a symbolic realm for the performance of European selves and the negotiation of European identities. Through the ESC, Europe is experienced, felt, and imagined in singing and dancing as the interplay of tropes of being local and/or European is enacted. In Empire of Song: Europe and Nation in the Eurovision Song Contest,...