Metal, Rock, and Jazz: Perception and the Phenomenology of Musical Experience by Harris M. Berger. "Music / Cultures" Series. Middletown, CT and Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press/ University Press of New England. Follow this link for the Metal, Rock, and Jazz web page. Back to top.
2004. Harris M. Berger and
Giovanna P. Del Negro. Identity and everyday life: Essays in the
study of folklore, music, and popular culture. "Music / Cultures"
Series. Middletown Conn.: Wesleyan University Press. Follow this
link for the Identity and Everyday
Life web page.
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"Character
Divination and Kinetic Sculpture in the Central Italian Passeggiata
(Ritual Promenade): Interpretive Frameworks and Expressive Practices
from a Body-Centered Perspective" by Giovanna P. Del Negro and
Harris M. Berger. Journal of
American Folklore. 114 (Winter): 1-15. 2001.
This paper explores the
interplay of bodily practices and interpretive frameworks in folklore
performance. A case study of the Italian passeggiata
(ritual promenade), the paper shows how culturally specific beliefs
about the relationship between character, sociability, and the body
inform expressive behavior and its interpretation. Ideas from
practice theory and performance studies illuminate the unique
conditions under which individual bodily performances may come
together to constitute complex representations of larger
collectivities. Ideas from phenomenology are used to explore the
interplay between the body as object and the body-subject in
expressive behavior. Click here for
the full text of the article. If
the previous link does not work, try this one. Back to top. Back to
CV.
"Death
Metal Tonality and the Act of Listening" by Harris M. Berger. Popular Music 18 (2):161-179.
1999.
This paper suggests that
musical perception is a kind of social practice and explores the sonic
experiences of death metal musicians in Akron, Ohio as a case
study. Grounded in Anthony Giddens's practice theory, the paper
shows how the musician's perception of tonality is actively
achieved, and, at the same time, profoundly informed by their larger
social contexts. Building on Edmund Husserl's phenomenology,
tonality is depicted as an outcome of the listener's organization of
the living present in sound perception. The paper concludes by
suggesting the relevance of perceptual practice for political issues in
popular music studies. Back to top. Back to CV.
"Identity Reconsidered, The World Doubled:
Identity as Interpretive Framework in Folklore Research" by Giovanna P. Del Negro and
Harris
M. Berger. Midwestern Folklore 28 (1): 5-32.
The notion of identity is both
pervasive and undertheorized in contemporary scholarship of expressive
culture. After analyzing the work of various theoretical
traditions in folklore and cultural studies, this article argues
that identity is best understood as an interpretive framework, a way
of making sense of the conduct of others. The paper illustrates the
dynamics of interpreting identity in folkloristics and explores the
differing ways in which audiences and performers experience and
employ this framework in performance events.Back
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to CV.
"The Practice
of Perception: Multi-Functionality and Time In the Musical
Experiences of Heavy Metal Drummers in Akron, Ohio" by Harris
M. Berger. Ethnomusicology
41
(3): 464-489. 1997.
Based on fieldwork
in Akron, Ohio, this paper applies ideas from phenomenology and
practice theory to the experiences of heavy metal drummers to argue
that perception is a form of social practice. The paper
describes philosopher Edmund Husserl's ideas on time consciousness
and applies them to the notions of additive and divisive time.
That framework is used to show how a metal drummer actively shifts
attention among temporal levels in perception to achieve various
musical goals. If perception is practice, practice theory's
insights into human action apply to it, and the paper concludes by
exploring the implications of these insights for ethnomusicological
research. Back to top. Back to CV.
"Theory
as Practice: Some Dialectics of Generality and Specificity in Folklore
and Folk Music Scholarship" by Harris M. Berger. Journal of Folklore Research
36 (1): 31-49. 1999.
This paper
examines the relationship between of theory and data in folklore
studies
and explores the complex dialects which confront anyone who wishes
to gain general insights from a comparison of the beliefs and
practices of particular cultures. Building on ideas from
phenomenology, the paper suggests that the emergent nature of
cultural forms makes universal generalizations about culture highly
problematic, and researchers are urged to treat the theoretical
enterprise as an ongoing dialog between scholarly ideas and the data
collected about living cultures. Theory is treated as a domain
of social practice, and Marxist, structuralist, and performance
approaches are used to illustrate the complex interplay that exists
between theory and data. Back to top. Back to CV.
"Mission Statement of the Popular Music Section of the Society for Ethnomusicology." Composed by Harris M. Berger, approved by the Section on October 24, 1997. Published in The SEM Newsletter 32, no. 1 (1998). Also published in The International Association for the Study of Popular Music-U.S. Chapter Newsletter Winter (1998), and The Review of Popular Music no. 25 (Dec., 1997). Follow this link for the full text of the "Mission Statement". Back to top.
"The Politics and Aesthetics of Language
Choice and Dialect in Popular Music," a special issue of Popular Music
and Society edited by Harris M. Berger and Michael T. Carroll.
Volume 24, Number 3. 2000.
From the explosive growth of Spanish language popular music in the
United States to the emergence of hip hop as a global phenomena, the
issue of language choice and dialect has become a central concern in
contemporary popular music. Around the world, almost every society has
become more complex and multi-cultural, and with these changes,
musicians and listeners–as well as music industry professionals and
academics–have increasingly found themselves confronting questions
of language choice: In which language or languages should I sing?
Which languages or dialects will most appeal to my listeners and
what kind of an audience do I want to attract? Which language will
get me a record contract? Which will sell the most copies? What does
it mean to sing or listen to music in a colonial language? A foreign
language? A regional dialect? A native language? Of all the
languages in which I may sing or listen to music, which is my "native
language?"
The purpose of this special issue is to explore the problem of language
choice and dialect in a global popular music context. Little
academic work has been done on language choice in music, and the topic
speaks to many of the key concerns in today's popular culture
studies–the globalization of the culture industries, authenticity,
the politics of music, multi-culturalism, and the emergence of
English as a dominant world language. A number of factors
have made language choice such an important concern in the
contemporary scene. The sharp rise of global migration in recent
years has increased the ethnic and linguistic diversity of almost
every society, complicating language choice issues for many
musicians and listeners. The growth of regional separatism movements
has brought the politics of dialect to the fore in countries from
Italy to Indonesia, and these concerns are reflected in the language
choices of musicians and listeners there. The globalization of the
entertainment industry and technological developments from audio
cassette to the Internet have helped music to flow across cultural
borders, making issues of language choice and dialect even more complex
and important. Sophisticated but accessible, the essays of this issue
come from a wide variety of disciplines and explore musics from a
spectrum of world cultures that includes North America, Europe, Asia,
Oceania, and Africa. Together, they give a rich portrait of a key
issue in contemporary popular culture studies. Back to top. Back
to
CV.
"Toward
New Perspectives on Verbal Art as Performance: Reflections on
the Twentieth Anniversary," a special issue of the Journal of
American Folklore edited by Harris M. Berger and Giovanna P. Del
Negro. Volume115, Number 455. 2002.
The articles for this
special issue explore the continuing relevance of Richard's Bauman's
classic text Verbal Art as Performance for the field of
folklore. Click
here for the full text of the introduction to the issue. Click here
for the table of contents of the issue. Back to top.
Back to CV.
Revised: June 2, 2005
Copyright Harris M. Berger