Music and Cultural Theory

John Shepherd is the Chancellor's Professor of Music and Sociology at Carleton University in Canada. Professor Shepherd was from 1991-1997 the founding Director of Carleton's School for Studies in Art and Culture. His research interests include the aesthetics of music, popular music studies, theory and method in musicology, cultural studies, and the sociology of music education.

• Preface. Introduction.1. The Problem of Affect and Meaning in Music.2. Music and Cultural Theory.3. Music and Psychoanalysis.4. Theorizing Difference in Language and Music.5. Music as a Medium in Sound.6. Music as Structure.7. Music's Semiological Moment.8. Music - a Performative Semiological Model.9. Music and Language in the Constitution of Society.10. Towards a Sociology of Sound.Bibliography.Index.

"This book actually moves popular music studies forward and offers a significant challenge to cultural theory. It asks a most difficult question: what might cultural criticism look like if music were at its center, rather than literature or the visual arts? It is one of the most important and exciting contributions in recent years to the study of popular music and popular culture." Lawrence Grossberg, University of North Carolina "This book accomplishes an important task, mapping the theoretical territory between musicology and cultural studies in order better to understand the processes of "meaning and affect" in music. It is a challenging and substantial contribution to the project of moving cultural theory towards an accommodation with musicology - an accommodation that, despite the best of intentions, is long overdue." Graeme Turner, University of Queensland"This ... is the first to tackle the relationship between music and cultural theory systematically, as its central task. The authors are eminently well qualified for the job, and the book should immediately become required reading in cultural studies, popular music studies and critical musicology." European Journal of Communication"This book is a significant contribution to theoretical analysis of music through cultural theory. I recommend it for those who are especially interested in the relationship between culture and music ... thought-provoking." Contemporary Sociology