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Drawing a link between music and what Maurice Merleau-Ponty calls the habit body a quasi-transcendental structure at the heart of our perceptual, social, and agential being this book helps articulate why music has the power to express as well as shape our existence at a fundamental level. Using phenomenology, research in the cognitive sciences, and first-person descriptions of musical experiences, this book addresses topics such as the relationship of music to identity, the capacity of music to be personally and socially transformative, the role of music in our perception of others, the connection between music and trauma, and the possibility of engendering we-experiences through shared musical time.
List of contents
Chapter 1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. Musical Epistemology.- Chapter 3. Listening.- Chapter 4. The Body in the Phenomenology of Perception.- Chapter 5. Singing.- Chapter 6. Music and the Situated Body Schema.- Chapter 7. Dancing.- Chapter 8. The Role of Others in Musical Experience.- Chapter 9. Performing.- Chapter 10. Transforming the Habit Body through Music.- Chapter 11. Playing.- Chapter 12. Conclusion.
About the author
Rachel Elliott is a Doctoral Lecturer in Philosophy at CUNY, College of Staten Island, in New York City. This is her first book.
Summary
Drawing a link between music and what Maurice Merleau-Ponty calls the habit body – a quasi-transcendental structure at the heart of our perceptual, social, and agential being – this book helps articulate why music has the power to express as well as shape our existence at a fundamental level. Using phenomenology, research in the cognitive sciences, and first-person descriptions of musical experiences, this book addresses topics such as the relationship of music to identity, the capacity of music to be personally and socially transformative, the role of music in our perception of others, the connection between music and trauma, and the possibility of engendering we-experiences through shared musical time.
