Magnus Ring
Senior lecturer | Internationalization officer
Music and Trauma. On the Relationship Between Music and Cultural Remembrance
Author
Summary, in English
This paper address the role of music in relation to what
here is defined as cultural trauma. The text takes its starting point in Jeremy Eichler’s (2023) project on the music of remembrance, in which he shows how music bears witness to history and carries the memory of the past, using the cases of composers that lived through the 2nd WW and the Holocaust, the paper establishes a
case of how music may work as a cultural memory carrying forward the meaning of a more or less distant past. As cultural trauma may persist over generations (e.g., the Holocaust or slavery) the living memory of these events fades, which leads to questions regarding how these memories still may persists and be addressed through cultural means of various kinds. The role of different forms of memorialization here becomes central. These events are not only memorialized in various institutional forms such as museums and/or monuments, but also by other means such as
literature and the arts. The paper elaborate Eicher’s sample of classic music by looking at cases of more recent forms of musical expressions that also relates to a troublesome and traumatic collective past. Using the theory of cultural trau-
ma (e.g., Alexander 2004, Eyerman et.al 2011 2023) and a range of exemplary musical expressions as cases, the paper shows how various generations may find their own forms and expressions in respect to how to deal with the cultural memory of a common traumatic past.
here is defined as cultural trauma. The text takes its starting point in Jeremy Eichler’s (2023) project on the music of remembrance, in which he shows how music bears witness to history and carries the memory of the past, using the cases of composers that lived through the 2nd WW and the Holocaust, the paper establishes a
case of how music may work as a cultural memory carrying forward the meaning of a more or less distant past. As cultural trauma may persist over generations (e.g., the Holocaust or slavery) the living memory of these events fades, which leads to questions regarding how these memories still may persists and be addressed through cultural means of various kinds. The role of different forms of memorialization here becomes central. These events are not only memorialized in various institutional forms such as museums and/or monuments, but also by other means such as
literature and the arts. The paper elaborate Eicher’s sample of classic music by looking at cases of more recent forms of musical expressions that also relates to a troublesome and traumatic collective past. Using the theory of cultural trau-
ma (e.g., Alexander 2004, Eyerman et.al 2011 2023) and a range of exemplary musical expressions as cases, the paper shows how various generations may find their own forms and expressions in respect to how to deal with the cultural memory of a common traumatic past.
Department/s
- Sociology
- ST - the Union of Civil Servants
Publishing year
2024-08
Language
English
Pages
128-129
Document type
Conference paper: abstract
Topic
- Social Work
Conference name
16th ESA "Tension, Trust, and Transformation"
Conference date
2024-08-27 - 2024-08-30
Conference place
Porto, Portugal
Status
Published