1st Edition
Musicological Identities Essays in Honor of Susan McClary
No music scholar has made as profound an impact on contemporary thought as Susan McClary, a central figure in what has been termed the 'new musicology'. In this volume seventeen distinguished scholars pay tribute to her work, with essays addressing three approaches to music that have characterized her own writings: reassessing music's role in identity formation, particularly regarding gender, sexuality, and race; exploring music's capacity to define and regulate perceptions and experiences of time; and advancing new modes of analysis more appropriate to those aspects and modes of musicking ignored by traditional methods. Contributors include, in overlapping categories, many fellow pioneers, current colleagues, and former students, and their essays, like McClary's own work, address a wide range of repertories ranging from the established canon to a variety of popular genres. The collection represents the generational arrival of the 'new' musicology into full maturity, dividing fairly evenly between pre-eminent scholars of music and a group of younger scholars who have already made their mark in significant ways. But the collection is also, and fundamentally, interdisciplinary in nature, in active conversation with such fields as history, anthropology, philosophy, aesthetics, media studies, film music studies, dramatic criticism, women's studies, and cultural studies.
Biography
Raymond Knapp is Professor in the Musicology Faculty at UCLA, USA. Steven Baur and Jacqueline Warwick are both Assistant Professors in the Department of Music at Dalhousie University, Canada.
'Rose Rosengard Subotnik was awarded the 2009 Slim Award (best article by scholar beyond early stages) by the AMS for her contribution to Musicological Identities: "Shoddy Equipment for Living?: Deconstructing the Tin Pan Alley Song,". Anyone still uncertain of Susan McClary's impact on musicology is warmly recommended to seek out this stimulating collection of essays. It is a remarkable tribute, not simply as an illustration of affection from two generations of musical scholars, but as an indication of how confidently and unapologetically the social meanings of music are now foregrounded. McClary was among the first to attempt to tease out such meanings, and inspired others to do likewise. The breadth of scholarship on display here is representative of the changed musicological landscape she helped to bring about.' Derek B. Scott, University of Leeds, UK ’[There is] diversity and openness... in many aspects of the book: in the range of musics and methodologies, in the willingness of scholars to interrogate their assumptions. In these qualities I detect a confident and mature discipline, one that goes far beyond appropriation or imitation of other disciplines to give something back to the humanities. Grown-up musicology? I think so.’ Journal of the Society for Musicology in Ireland
