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Introduction: The Long History of Neurology and Music

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Music and the Nerves, 1700–1900

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Abstract

We live in an age in which interest in the embodied character of aesthetic experience has come to take on enormous significance in both science and cultural studies. Neuroscience is systematically examining aesthetic issues and the humanities seem to be in the grip of a neuroscientific turn. Indeed, several authors have argued recently that the urge to find neurological explanations may have been pushed too far, perhaps amounting to ‘neuromania’.1 In particular, music, with its seemingly direct effect on the nervous system, has been the focus of intense interest among cognitive neuroscientists over the past few decades. Huge strides forward have been made in our understanding of how the brain reacts to music, and representations of music’s effects in the humanities and in media reports increasingly reflect the prestige of neurology. Along with the interest in embodiment in the so-called New Musicology, neurological insights into music appear to be at the heart of a new framework for thinking about music well beyond clinical and scientific circles, and some now consider neurology to have the potential to provide a future paradigm for musical aesthetics.

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Notes

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  1. James Kennaway
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Kennaway, J. (2014). Introduction: The Long History of Neurology and Music. In: Kennaway, J. (eds) Music and the Nerves, 1700–1900. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137339515_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137339515_1

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-46447-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-33951-5

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