It has long been accepted that participating in music, either as a performer, listener, or composer, can contribute to human happiness and well-being. This volume, part of The Humanities and Human Flourishing series, explores a fourth musical activity--the act of music scholarship--and reveals how engagement with the cultural, social, and political practices surrounding music contributes to human flourishing in a way that listening, performing, and even composing alone cannot.
Music and Human Flourishing contains essays by eleven prominent scholars representing the fields of musicology, ethnomusicology, and music theory. The essays are divided into three general categories and cover a broad range of topics and music traditions. In Part I, Contemplation, contributors explore a specific facet of music's connection to human flourishing and contemplate new approaches for future action. Part II, Critique, contains essays that challenge past assumptions of the various roles of music in society and highlight the effects that unconscious bias and stereotyping have had on music's effectiveness to facilitate human flourishing. Part III, Communication, features essays that explore how ethnicity, gender, religion, and technology influence our ability to connect with others through music. Collectively, these essays demonstrate how the process of thinking and writing about music and human flourishing can lead to revelations about cultural identity, social rituals, political ideologies, and even spiritual transcendence.
"Series Editor's Foreword: ""The Humanities and Human Flourishing"" by James O. Pawelski Introduction: ""Music and Human Flourishing"" by Anna Harwell Celenza Part I: Contemplation Chapter 1: Musical Flourishes: Lessons from a Conservatory Jonathan Coopersmith Chapter 2: Jubilee: The (Positive) Science of Black Music Shana Redmond Chapter 3: Post-Tonal Music and Well-Being Joy H. Calico Chapter 4: Can 'Old-Fashioned' Approaches to Listening Contribute to Human Flourishing? Michael Beckerman Part II: Critique Chapter 5: Understanding Music Studies, Well-Being, and the Humanities in Times of Neoliberalism Alejandro Madrid Chapter 6: The Music Scholar as a Type of Non-Musician Todd Decker Chapter 7: They Say 'Music Should be Seen but not Heard': Music and Flourishing in the Elite Liberal Arts University Wendy Heller Part III: Communication Chapter 8: Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Collaboration in Arts and Human Flourishing Nancy Yunhwa Rao Chapter 9: Rethinking Women's Music-Making through the Lens of Human Flourishing Annegret Fauser Chapter 10: Playful Transcendence: Paths to Human Flourishing in Black Music Research and Performance Melvin L. Butler Chapter 11: Music for the Masses: Finding a Balance between Emotional Labor and Human Flourishing Anna Harwell Celenza"
Anna Harwell Celenza is a professor at Johns Hopkins University, where she holds a joint appointment in The Writing Seminars and at Peabody Conservatory. She is the author of several books, including Jazz Italian Style, from Its Origins in New Orleans to Fascist Italy and Sinatra (2017) and The Cambridge Companion to Gershwin (2019). She has also published eight award-winning children's books, including Bach's Goldberg Variations, Beethoven's Heroic Symphony, and Duke Ellington's Nutcracker Suite. In 2016, Celenza co-founded Music Policy Forum, a non-profit that advises local governments about how to create sustainable music ecosystems.
