This is not music

Sound as world-making, music as metaphor: a critical investigation of acoustheology, resonance and the late-modern desire to hear the world as unity.

Why has sound become one of the dominant metaphors of late modernity? From ASMR and data sonification to ecological theory and social philosophy music and auditory perception increasingly promise connection, immersion and meaning. In This is not music Magdalena Zorn traces this acoustic turn through the concept of “acoustheology”: a mode of thought in which sound becomes a substitute for theology and grounds worldviews, ethics and social imaginations.

Drawing on music history, sound studies, philosophy and media theory the book examines how composers, theorists and artists since the mid-twentieth century have expanded music into a boundless explanatory model — often at the expense of critique, distance and difference. Zorn questions the widespread celebration of resonance, vibration and sonic connectedness and reveals their political, epistemological and affective implications. What appears as intimacy and togetherness, she argues, may just as easily produce conformity, obedience and exclusion.

This is not music is a precise contribution to current debates on sound, ecology and culture – and insists on reflection where immersion promises comfort.

This volume of our SYNKOPEN series will be released on March 24 and is now available for pre-order.