[ecrea] Seminar at Strathclyde University on 'difficult music'

Colleagues in the area, and of sound judgement, are certain to want to come to see the following seminar by Chris Atton (Professor of Media and Culture at Edinburgh Napier University).  It is on Wednesday 2 October at 4pm in room 226 a/b, in the Lord Hope Building, University of Strathclyde, St James Road, Glasgow (across the path from the library).

 ‘Cultures of Listening: The Popular Aesthetics of ‘Difficult Music’’.

Abstract:
‘Difficulty and complexity are values most often associated with a modernist avant-garde of ‘serious’ music. Their presence in popular music tends to attract the opprobrium of critics who seek to maintain a purity for popular music founded on values of authenticity, sincerity and directness of expression. In my presentation I will explore the critical discourse of audiences for difficult music in popular culture, such as avant-rock, Noise and free improvisation. I will show how and where audiences listen to and derive pleasure from music that sits on the intersection between the popular and the avant-garde. Rather than engage in arid exercises in intellectualism, which is how many critics might expect such audiences to behave, fans of the popular avant-garde encounter difficulty and complexity through a fertile variety of social situations, interpretations and aesthetic judgements’.

Hope to see you there.

Michael

Dr Michael Higgins
Senior Lecturer in English and Journalism
University of Strathclyde
School of Humanities
Lord Hope Building
141 St James Road
Glasgow G4 0LT
Tel: +44(0)141 548 8320
Email:(michael.higgins /at/ strath.ac.uk)
Home Page:http://www.strath.ac.uk/humanities/courses/journalism/staff/higginsmichaeldr/


---------------
ECREA-Mailing list
---------------
This mailing list is a free service from ECREA and Nico Carpentier.
--
To subscribe, post or unsubscribe, please visit
http://www.ecrea.eu/mailinglist
--
ECREA - European Communication Research and Education Association
--
Postal address:
ECREA
Chauss�de Waterloo 1151
1180 Uccle
Belgium
--
Email: (info /at/ ecrea.eu)
URL: http://www.ecrea.eu
---------------