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Listening Subjects: Music, Psychoanlysis Culture

by David Schwarz

Listening Subjects: Music, Psychoanlysis Culture Cover

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

In Listening Subjects, David Schwarz uses psychoanalytic techniques to probe the visceral experiences of music listeners. Using classical, popular, and avant-garde music as texts, Schwarz addresses intriguing questions: why do bodies develop goose bumps when listening to music and why does music sound so good when heard all around? By concentrating on music as cultural artifact, Listening Subjects shows how the historical conditions under which music is created affect the listening experience.

Schwarz applies the ideas of post-Lacanian psychoanalytic theorists Slavoj Zizek, Julia Kristeva, and Kaja Silverman to an analysis of diverse works. In a discussion of John Adams's opera Nixon in China, he presents music listening as a fantasy of being enclosed in a second skin of enveloping sound. He looks at the song cycles of Franz Schubert as an examination and expression of epistemological doubts at the advent of modernism, and traverses fantasy space in his exploration of the white noise at the end of the Beatles' I Want You (She's So Heavy). Schwarz also considers the psychosexual undercurrent in Peter Gabriel's Intruder and the textual and ideological structures of German Oi Musik. Concluding with a reading of two compositions by Diamanda Galas, he reveals how some performances can simultaneously produce terror and awe, abjection and rage, pleasure and displeasure. This multilayered study transcends other interventions in the field of musicology, particularly in its groundbreaking application of literary theory to popular and classical music.

Synopsis:

"Schwarz has a keen music-analytical sense, a solid grounding in psychoanalysis, and an effervescent intellectual energy. His project is a fresh and distinctive addition to the ongoing rapprochement between musicology, critical theory, and cultural studies."--Lawrence Kramer, Fordham University

Description:

Includes bibliographical references (p. [203]-206) and index.

Product Details

ISBN:
9780822319221
Author:
Schwarz, David
Publisher:
Duke University Press
Author:
Schwarz
Location:
Durham :
Subject:
Reference
Subject:
Music
Subject:
Appreciation
Subject:
Psychoanalysis
Subject:
Music -- Philosophy and aesthetics.
Subject:
Movements - Psychoanalysis
Subject:
Instruction & Study - Appreciation
Series Volume:
no. 16
Publication Date:
January 1997
Binding:
Paperback
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Yes
Pages:
224
Dimensions:
9.19x6.00x.67 in. .93 lbs.

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