Unter dem Begriff „kulturelle Musikwissenschaft“ versammeln sich seit über einem halben Jahrhundert eine Reihe musikwissenschaftlicher Visionen, die alle ein gemeinsames Ziel verfolgen: die unermüdliche Suche nach neuen Wegen für ein besseres Musikverständnis. Jüngste Ansätze kultureller Musikwissenschaft begreifen musikalische Aktivitäten als kulturelle Praktiken und versuchen so über die systematische Analyse verbaler und musikalischer Diskurse hinaus zu gelangen. Das Interesse gilt vorrangig der Erforschung unserer intellektuellen Möglichkeiten, die es uns erlauben, uns in physischer, sozialer oder diskursiver Hinsicht die Welt mithilfe von Musik zu erschließen. Daraus ergeben sich aktuelle Untersuchungsschwerpunkte und kritische Denkansätze der kulturellen Musikwissenschaft, deren Geschichte, theoretischen Rahmen und zentrale Konzepte die Autoren des vorliegenden Bandes am Beispiel spezifischer musikalischer Praktiken diskutieren. Dabei wird deutlich, dass es der kulturellen Musikwissenschaft vielmehr darum geht, Fragen aufzuwerfen und Perspektiven zu eröffnen, als Antworten und Fakten festzulegen. Sie lehnt es ab, sich mit Erkenntnissen zufrieden zu geben, entscheidend ist ein fortgesetztes Streben nach neuen Wegen und Annäherungen an die Musik: eine produktive intellektuelle Rastlosigkeit. Der vorliegende Band enthält Beiträge von Birgit Abels, Charissa Granger, Lawrence Kramer, John Richardson und Eva-Maria van Straaten. The term “cultural musicology” has been around for more than half a century, and it has harbored a number of musicological visions which share one fundamental goal: broadly speaking, aspiring to better understand music and remaining eager to find ever-new ways to do so. Recent cultural musicology seeks to understand musical activities as cultural practices in a manner that aims to reach beyond the systematic analysis of verbal and musical – musicked – discourse and of the conditions in which it is enacted. Its primary interest is in exploring our primarily intellectual possibilities to comprise of musicking as epistemologies through which humans musically relate to, and make sense of, their surrounding world in a physical, social, and discursive sense. From this, a few key areas of inquiry emerge, and this edited volume presents a first-of-its-kind exploration of current critical thinking and research in and about cultural musicology. In exploring specific musical practices, the contributors discuss the (hi)stories, theoretical framework, and central concepts of current cultural musicology. In-between the lines, it becomes clear that cultural musicology is about looking for questions and perspectives rather than answers and presumed facts, about refusing to be content with anything that may be found along the way, and about remaining eager to discover new approaches and ways to think about music: about intellectual restlessness, and embracing it. This edited volume includes contributions from Birgit Abels, Charissa Granger, Lawrence Kramer, John Richardson, and Eva-Maria van Straaten.

We're being formed by our devices. Unpacking the soft tyranny of the digital age, Felicia Wu Song combines insights from psychology, neuroscience, sociology, and theology as she considers digital practices through the lens of "liturgy" and formation. Exploring pathways of meaningful resistance found in Christian tradition, this resource offers practical experiments for individual and communal change.

From places like John Piper's den, Al Mohler's office, and Jonathan Edwards's college, Christianity Today journalist Collin Hansen investigates what makes today's young Calvinists tick. Church-growth strategies and charismatic worship have fueled the bulk of evangelical growth in America for decades. While baby boomers have flocked to churches that did not look or sound like church, it seems these churches do not so broadly capture the passions of today's twenty-something evangelicals. In fact, a desire for transcendence and tradition among young evangelicals has contributed to a Reformed resurgence. For nearly two years, Christianity Today journalist Collin Hansen visited the chief schools, churches, and conferences of this growing movement. He sought to describe its members and ask its leading pastors and theologians about the causes and implications of the Calvinist resurgence. The result, Young, Restless, Reformed, shows common threads in their diverse testimonies and suggests what tomorrow's church might look like when these young evangelicals become pastors or professors.

Music as an Art begins by examining music through a philosophical lens, engaging in discussions about tonality, music and the moral life, music and cognitive science and German idealism, as well as recalling the author's struggle to encourage his students to distinguish the qualities of good music. Scruton then explains – via erudite chapters on Schubert, Britten, Rameau, opera and film – how we can develop greater judgement in music, recognising both good taste and bad, establishing musical values, as well as musical pleasures. As Scruton argues in this book, in earlier times, our musical culture had secure foundations in the church, the concert hall and the home; in the ceremonies and celebrations of ordinary life, religion and manners. Yet we no longer live in that world. Fewer people now play instruments and music is, for many, a form of largely solitary enjoyment. As he shows in Music as an Art, we live at a critical time for classical music, and this book is an important contribution to the debate, of which we stand in need, concerning the place of music in Western civilization.

Hearing Maskanda outlines how people make sense of their world through practicing and hearing maskanda music in South Africa. Having emerged in response to the experience of forced labour migration in the early 20th century, maskanda continues to straddle a wide range of cultural and musical universes. Maskanda musicians reground ideas, (hi)stories, norms, speech and beliefs that have been uprooted in centuries of colonial and apartheid rule by using specific musical textures, vocalities and idioms. With an autoethnographic approach of how she came to understand and participate in maskanda, Titus indicates some instances where her acts of knowledge formation confronted, bridged or invaded those of other maskanda participants. Thus, the book not only aims to demonstrate the epistemic importance of music and aurality but also the performative and creative dimension of academic epistemic approaches such as ethnography, historiography and music analysis, that aim towards conceptualization and (visual) representation. In doing so, the book unearths the colonialist potential of knowledge formation at large and disrupts modes of thinking and (academic) research that are globally normative.

Popular Musicology and Identity paves new paths for studying popular music’s entwinement with gender, sexuality, ethnicity, class, locality, and a range of other factors. The book consists of original essays in honour of Stan Hawkins, whose work has been a major influence on the musicological study of gender and identity since the early 1990s. In the new millennium, musicological approaches have proliferated and evolved alongside major shifts in the music industry and popular culture. Reflecting this plurality, the book reaches into a range of musical contexts, eras, and idioms to critically investigate the discursive structures that govern the processes through which music is mobilised as a focal point for negotiating and assessing identity. With contributions from leading scholars in the field, Popular Musicology and Identity accounts for the state of popular musicology at the onset of the 2020s while also offering a platform for the further advancement of the critical study of popular music and identity. This collection of essays thus provides an up-to-date resource for scholars across fields such as popular music studies, musicology, gender studies, and media studies.