Lisa McCormick

The agency of dead musicians

A long-standing theme in the sociology of the arts is the sacralisation of art in modern society, but an underexplored aspect of this process is how death shapes artistic creation and appreciation. This paper approaches this issue through an examination of the cult of the dead composer in classical music. After considering the cultural logic and effect of musical sainthood, I discuss how composers are venerated; commemorative rites, such as anniversary programming, provide a phenomenological connection between the living and the dead, while physical remains and relic-like objects carry messages from beyond the grave that can be usurped or amplified by political projects. By comparing the fetishisation of the dead diva with the composer cult, I explain why performers who continue to be admired posthumously still do not achieve the same exalted status as composers.

Editorial Statement: Tracing, Making and Locating Cultural Sociology:

An academic journal is a lot like an artwork. It is the product of collective activity, and the cooperation between participants is organised through joint knowledge of the conventional way of doing things. Editors, as core personnel, are expected to bring more than the technical skills required to assemble issue after issue; this status demands that they also have creative abilities and a vision that will lend the journal a distinctive character. The convention in the publishing world is for this vision to be articulated in the inaugural editorial statement, and depending on whether the editors see themselves as ‘integrated professionals’ or ‘mavericks’ (Becker, 1982), they also indicate the standards of taste to be upheld or introduced. While we will not deviate from this convention, we also see the editorial statement as a deeply symbolic act. It is the ritual equivalent in publishing to the handing over of keys, the changing of the guard, or the swearing in of new office holders. It is the editors’ first opportunity for social performance, where they can ‘display for others the meaning of their social situation’ (Alexander, 2004: 529), and their unwavering commitment to that which is held sacred in their scholarly community. Editorial statements by incoming editors capture a liminal moment in the life of the journal when it is betwixt and between the stewardship of old and new guardians. But in our case, the transition is laden with more significance, not just because it is the first handover in the journal’s history, but also because it aligned with its 10th anniversary volume. Milestones might be arbitrary temporal boundaries, but crossing into the journal’s second decade is experienced as a ‘mental quantum leap’ (Zerubavel, 1996) that prompts a form of biographical occasion to take stock of the journal’s history. To that end, we will begin our editorial statement by considering the position and legacy of the journal before placing ourselves in its unfolding narrative by offering our interpretation of the current state of the field. This sets the scene for the next section, where we reflect on what it means for the journal to serve as an ‘organ of self-consciousness’ (Inglis et al., 2007: 7) in cultural sociology today. In the final section, we identify some of the hot topics and critical conversations we would like to encourage in the journal, as well as our hopes for strengthening and widening the journal’s visibility.

Tuning in or turning off: performing emotion and building cosmopolitan solidarity in international music competitions

This article suggests that international classical music competitions are becoming sites of the global cultural public sphere. Like post-traditional festivals, they have previously served as arenas where nations compete for supremacy. But as these events become more globalized, they create opportunities to foster cosmopolitan sociability and cultivate global values. Through a discourse analysis of media coverage and online commentary from a selected case, I examine how difference is constructed in the competition context and how these categories complicate attempts to relate musically across differences. This analysis highlights the central role of emotion in the process of cultural inclusion, both as a discursive trope in evaluations of musical authenticity and as a signifier of value justifying the incorporation of a wider range of people into the circle of great musicians.

Book Review: Claudio E. Benzecry, The Opera Fanatic: Ethnography of an Obsession

utilizes the mathematics of dynamical systems theory to show how differential variables reflect the complexities of life. Coleman’s method serves as a broad conceptual guide but nevertheless entails certain limitations. Various mathematical concepts are not brought together with the aid of a coherent mathematical structure. If Deleuze utilizes the mathematical notion of a vector space to describe the internal relations of a film and refers to the film as ‘functionalism’, a mathematical formalism, then can one insist that his use of the mathematical notion of a set is somehow other than that, especially as Deleuze’s use of the concept of a set conforms to its mathematical use? Overall, one might be left wondering: why does Deleuze’s theory of the cinema use mathematical concepts and how do the various conceptual elements fit together to constitute that mathematical structure? Moreover, it is difficult to understand how two apparently incommensurate types of image, the movement-image and the time-image, are inseparable when one describes the representational and chronological time of action and the other describes the changes of quality produced when the image is no longer representational but purely optical, bypassing representation. And indeed, if it is the case, as Deleuze and Guattari have stated, that people desire their own enslavement so that, in the end, all notions of truth end up being false, then what can cinema possibly to do counteract this in an ethical manner, since its truth would have to be equally false, equally enslaving? Deleuze’s cinema books seem to be like the vector space that he uses to describe the film image. Their many trajectories and elements are difficult to organize. It may be that the movement-image and the time-image are actually his attempt to provide some overall organization for these systems. Coleman has set out the key concepts at work but the rules governing those concepts await further articulation.