Kevin Korsyn
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195104547
- eISBN:
- 9780199868988
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195104547.003.0002
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition
This chapter begins with a discussion of the crisis confronting musical scholarship. Musical research is described as becoming like a Tower of Babel, where members of opposing groups seem to be ...
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This chapter begins with a discussion of the crisis confronting musical scholarship. Musical research is described as becoming like a Tower of Babel, where members of opposing groups seem to be speaking different languages or playing different language games. When individuals stake their identities on particular language games, they regard each other's work with indifference or even with contempt. The Ministry of Truth — a pyramid of “glittering white concrete” seen in George Orwell's 1984 — is also used to symbolize the current state of musical research. In this building, a vast bureaucracy toils relentlessly to serve Big Brother, propagandizing the entire population to produce an absolute political orthodoxy. One of their tasks is to transform all discourse into Newspeak, an artificial language intended not only to replace standard English but also to render politically deviant thought impossible. When individuals are compelled to measure themselves against quantitative standards, when they must address administrators who are remote from the work itself, when they are forced to objectify themselves, to police their own thought, they come to resemble the inhabitants of Orwell's dystopia.Less
This chapter begins with a discussion of the crisis confronting musical scholarship. Musical research is described as becoming like a Tower of Babel, where members of opposing groups seem to be speaking different languages or playing different language games. When individuals stake their identities on particular language games, they regard each other's work with indifference or even with contempt. The Ministry of Truth — a pyramid of “glittering white concrete” seen in George Orwell's 1984 — is also used to symbolize the current state of musical research. In this building, a vast bureaucracy toils relentlessly to serve Big Brother, propagandizing the entire population to produce an absolute political orthodoxy. One of their tasks is to transform all discourse into Newspeak, an artificial language intended not only to replace standard English but also to render politically deviant thought impossible. When individuals are compelled to measure themselves against quantitative standards, when they must address administrators who are remote from the work itself, when they are forced to objectify themselves, to police their own thought, they come to resemble the inhabitants of Orwell's dystopia.
Kevin Korsyn
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195104547
- eISBN:
- 9780199868988
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195104547.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition
This chapter argues that the present crisis confronting musical scholarship needs something like an antimethod that will ask how current methods work by examining their enabling conditions. Given the ...
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This chapter argues that the present crisis confronting musical scholarship needs something like an antimethod that will ask how current methods work by examining their enabling conditions. Given the deadlock between opposing groups, and the impasses at which debates repeatedly seem to stall, it recommends starting at the impasses to see how they arise. Rather than build another tower, or another pyramid of truth, it seeks to occupy the space between existing structures, to inhabit the shadows, to map the labyrinth. An overview of the succeeding chapters is presented.Less
This chapter argues that the present crisis confronting musical scholarship needs something like an antimethod that will ask how current methods work by examining their enabling conditions. Given the deadlock between opposing groups, and the impasses at which debates repeatedly seem to stall, it recommends starting at the impasses to see how they arise. Rather than build another tower, or another pyramid of truth, it seeks to occupy the space between existing structures, to inhabit the shadows, to map the labyrinth. An overview of the succeeding chapters is presented.
Kevin Korsyn
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195104547
- eISBN:
- 9780199868988
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195104547.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition
This book examines the struggle for the authority to speak about music at a time when the humanities are in crisis. By linking the institutions that support musical research, including professional ...
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This book examines the struggle for the authority to speak about music at a time when the humanities are in crisis. By linking the institutions that support musical research, including professional associations and universities, to complex historical changes such as globalization and the commodification of knowledge, this book undertakes a critique of musical scholarship as an institutional discourse, while contributing to a general theory of disciplinary structures that goes beyond the limits of any single field. In asking a number of fundamental questions about the models through which disciplinary objects in music are constructed, the book suggests unexpected relationships between works of musical scholarship and the cultural networks in which they participate. Thus, David Lewin's theory of musical perceptions is compared to Richard Rorty's concept of the “liberal ironist”, Susan McClary's feminist narrative of music history is juxtaposed with T.S. Eliot's “dissociation of sensibility”, and Steven Feld's work in recording the music of the Kaluli people is compared to the treatment of ambient sound in contemporary cinema. Developing a framework for interpretation in dialogue with a number of poststructuralist writers, the book goes far beyond applying their thought to the analysis of music; by showing the cultural dilemmas to which their work responds, it suggests how musical research already participates in these ideas.Less
This book examines the struggle for the authority to speak about music at a time when the humanities are in crisis. By linking the institutions that support musical research, including professional associations and universities, to complex historical changes such as globalization and the commodification of knowledge, this book undertakes a critique of musical scholarship as an institutional discourse, while contributing to a general theory of disciplinary structures that goes beyond the limits of any single field. In asking a number of fundamental questions about the models through which disciplinary objects in music are constructed, the book suggests unexpected relationships between works of musical scholarship and the cultural networks in which they participate. Thus, David Lewin's theory of musical perceptions is compared to Richard Rorty's concept of the “liberal ironist”, Susan McClary's feminist narrative of music history is juxtaposed with T.S. Eliot's “dissociation of sensibility”, and Steven Feld's work in recording the music of the Kaluli people is compared to the treatment of ambient sound in contemporary cinema. Developing a framework for interpretation in dialogue with a number of poststructuralist writers, the book goes far beyond applying their thought to the analysis of music; by showing the cultural dilemmas to which their work responds, it suggests how musical research already participates in these ideas.
Lawrence Kramer
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780520288799
- eISBN:
- 9780520963627
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520288799.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition
What, exactly, is knowledge of music? And what does it tell us about humanistic knowledge in general? This book grapples directly with these fundamental questions—questions especially compelling at a ...
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What, exactly, is knowledge of music? And what does it tell us about humanistic knowledge in general? This book grapples directly with these fundamental questions—questions especially compelling at a time when humanistic knowledge is enmeshed in debates about its character and future. In this third volume in a trilogy on musical understanding the author seeks answers in both thought about music and thought in music-thinking in tones. The book assesses musical scholarship in the aftermath of critical musicology and musical hermeneutics and in view of more recent concerns with embodiment, affect, and performance. The book challenges the prevailing conceptions of every topic it addresses: language, context, and culture; pleasure and performance; and, through music, the foundations of understanding in the humanities.Less
What, exactly, is knowledge of music? And what does it tell us about humanistic knowledge in general? This book grapples directly with these fundamental questions—questions especially compelling at a time when humanistic knowledge is enmeshed in debates about its character and future. In this third volume in a trilogy on musical understanding the author seeks answers in both thought about music and thought in music-thinking in tones. The book assesses musical scholarship in the aftermath of critical musicology and musical hermeneutics and in view of more recent concerns with embodiment, affect, and performance. The book challenges the prevailing conceptions of every topic it addresses: language, context, and culture; pleasure and performance; and, through music, the foundations of understanding in the humanities.
