Overview

Why does Stanley Cavell’s philosophical thought matter for music? And how did Cavell’s musical practice and appreciation of music give shape to his indelible philosophical claims about cinema, human speech, opera, the expression of skepticism, and ordinary language philosophy? Music with Stanley Cavell in Mind provides a first-of-its-kind intervention by leading philosophers and scholars of music into an intellectual landscape in need of such charting. As a performer who then trained as a philosopher, the arc of Cavell’s wide-ranging investigation of music maps consistently with a proximate concern for the features of human experience that involve music and sound, including the sound of prose, authorial voice (its possession, its divestment, its arrogation), the presence/problem/potentiality of silence in communication, and related features of sonic phenomena central to life lived at the scale of the everyday. Despite widespread scholarly fascination with the intersection of “Cavell” and “music”--that music is famously a core theme for him--no book like this has yet appeared. Moreover, our efforts here are addressed to the serious student (at all levels) and the general reader alike arriving from many precincts of thought and practice: musical performance, literary theory, cultural studies, musicology, and philosophy.

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9798765111048

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Reviews

A collection of exciting new essays by philosophers and practitioners of music in the full breadth of its range of art and thought; an exemplary display of versality and insight. * Lydia Goehr, Fred and Fannie Mack Professor of Humanities, Columbia University, USA * At last, a comprehensive book on the rich and beguiling relationships between philosophy and music in Cavell's work. These essays—which mix biography, philosophy, and critical reflection with a wide array of musical examples—give us deep insights about the ways music is inseparable from the varied forms, passions, and intentionalities of human life. * Michael Gallope, Associate Professor, Cultural Studies & Comparative Literature, Music, University of Minnesota, USA * In his memoir, Cavell recalls a famous anecdote. During a performance, the jazz saxophonist Ben Webster once stopped improvising on “Blue Skies” and afterwards when someone asked why he stopped playing so abruptly, he replied that he forgot the words. The authors of these essays recall, deeply and imaginatively, the music woven into Stanley Cavell’s words and the meanings intimated by a wide range of musickings, some of which he probed with his incomparable acumen, other forms he did not (e.g., punk). The range of referents runs from Schoenberg, Webern, and Cage to Elvis Costello without being strained or contrived. The contributors include a composer along with professors of music, education, history, and philosophy. Each in a singular way offers a lesson in listening to the music of Cavell’s words and the meanings made available by a wide range of musical genres. * Vincent Colapietro, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy & African American Studies, Pennsylvania State University, USA *

Author Information

David LaRocca, Ph.D., is the author or contributing editor of seventeen books, including several from Bloomsbury. He edited Stanley Cavell’s Emerson’s Transcendental Etudes (2003) and Metacinema (2021). Earlier edited volumes are devoted to the philosophy of documentary film, war films, and the cinema of Charlie Kaufman. He has taught philosophy, rhetoric, and cinema and held visiting research or teaching positions in the United States at Binghamton University, Cornell University, Harvard University, Ithaca College, the New York Public Library, the School of Visual Arts, the State University of New York at Cortland, and Vanderbilt University. He served as Harvard University’s Sinclair Kennedy Fellow in the United Kingdom and, like Cavell before him, was honored with the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Ralph Waldo Emerson Society. www.DavidLaRocca.org

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