Music and Ideology: Resisting the Aesthetic

This collection of essays, which reflects the views of music scholars who bring postmodern critical theory to bear on the theory and analysis of music, is long overdue. The essayists in this volume are not fixated on aesthetics; rather, they focus on the social and discursive concerns that had previously been considered marginal to their subject. 'Music/Ideology' is a response to the question: Must the practice of music analysis and music theory always reinscribe the ideology of aesthetic autonomy? And, if not, under what circumstances does it reinscribe that ideology?

The responses to these questions should appeal not only to music and cultural theorists, but also to larger audience engaged in critical theory. These essays serve as an introduction to the broad array of issues arising from approaches that represent the full spectrum, from music-theoretical to Marxist and feminist issues. Such questions are of vital importance and not only to those who ae engaged in establishing a connection among music theory, music analysis an aesthetic ideology. 'Music/Ideology' presents today's most interesting critical thinkers in postmodern theory and music theory, introducing an inter-disciplinary approach and covering a wide range of subjects-both by implication and explication.