The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

Music and Musicology in the Light of Intermediality and Intermedial Studies

På svenska

Author

Summary, in English

In this article I show how aesthetic disciplines, to which musicology belongs, have suffered from a crisis of creativity for the past decade or so. By crisis of creativity I mean the development of new theories, which can contribute to new knowledge about music, from both historical and contemporary prespectives. With help from theories that normally lies outside of the institutional discourse of musicology, I argue that what is known as an intermedial perspective can contribute to a new understandning of music. The aim with this article is thus to introduce the concept of intermediality and the discipline of intermedial studies into the discussion of musicology as a discipline. Two parallel strands are followed through which four questions are raised. The two strands are: 1) the ”interarts” strand, and 2) the Cultural Studies/media studies strand. The four questions are: 1) What characterises the intermedial perspective? 2) Which theories appear? 3) What are the similarities and differences between the ”interarts” and ”Cultural Studies/media studies strands? and finally, 4) Is there a place for a ”new” humanities discipline now and in the future? Question number four deals with the premise that society today is characterised by an intensive media culture, in which all cultural expressions are woven into one another, i.e. a multimodal and intermedial culture. If we to accept this premise, then for an intended humanities discipline to understand this culture, a specific, clearly formulated body of theory is needed. There appears to be an increasing demand for such a body of theory within different disciplinary fields that already has been formulated within the field of intermedial studies. My suggestion is that intermedial studies can function as a supplement to the other aesthetic disciplines.

Department/s

Publishing year

2012

Language

English

Publication/Series

STM-Online

Volume

15

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Svenska samfundet för musikforskning

Topic

  • Cultural Studies

Keywords

  • Johan Fornäs
  • Lars Elleström
  • Nicholas Cook
  • Claus Clüver
  • Jørgen Bruhn
  • Walter Bernhart
  • Irving Babbitt
  • Daniel Albright
  • Theodor W. Adorno
  • multidisciplinary
  • interdisciplinary
  • media studies
  • Cultural Studies
  • intermedial studies
  • interarts studies
  • comparative literature studies
  • new musicology
  • musicology
  • music
  • Lydia Goehr
  • Clement Greenberg
  • Joseph Kerman
  • Lawrence Kramer
  • Ulla-Britta Lagerroth
  • Mikko Lehtonen
  • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
  • Simon Shaw-Miller
  • W. J. T. Mitchell
  • Steven Paul Scher
  • Werner Wolf.

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1403-5715