Dear all,
We are very happy to announce that a special issue of the European Journal of Musicology on “Performing Bodies” is now accessible online at this address: https://bop.unibe.ch/EJM.
The volume includes a selection of studies which were originally presented at the 2019 ESEM, hosted by Durham University, and offers a particularly varied set of reflections, approaches, case studies and methodologies.
Please see below for the list of contents.
We would like to acknowledge Britta Sweers and the editorial team of the European Journal of Musicology for a most fruitful collaboration and for the support offered to us.
Very best wishes
Laura Leante and Samuel Horlor
European Journal of Musicology
Vol. 23 No. 1 (2025): “Performing Bodies”
The recognition of music as an embodied phenomenon has a long history across musicology, with ethnomusicology one of the areas in which it has been most thoroughly explored as a theme. This issue of the European Journal of Musicology looks at the “Performing Body” through a selection of case studies. It engages with several aspects of music’s embodied dimensions with the theoretical, technological, and analytical tools at our disposal in the twenty-first century. In doing so, it contextualises research on the musical body within recent and current academic debate, including on the transnational circulation of music, migration, and decolonisation. This collection aims to take stock of the state of ethnomusicological research on the body in performance and to stimulate debate from a range of diverse, but complementary perspectives and research methods.
https://bop.unibe.ch/EJM/issue/view/1452
“Performing Bodies”: Introduction
Laura Leante, Samuel Horlor
Music and the Body: From Cognition to Performance
Thomas Solomon
Being Inspired, Being Possessed: Performative Techniques for the Embodiment of the Spirits in Burmese Urban Ceremonies
Lorenzo Chiarofonte
Investigating Embodiment in Oral Mnemonics within Japanese Music
Sayumi Kamata
Dance in Steelband Performance and its Connection to Decoloniality
Charissa Granger
The Intersectionality of Performing Bodies: Dance and the Afghan Refugee Experience
Marko Kölbl
Understanding Tango Danceability by Accessing Embodied Knowledge: The “Harmonic Comfort Zone”
Kendra Stepputat
John Blacking and the “Human/Musical Instrument Interface”: Two Plucked Lutes from Afghanistan
John Baily