Melancholic Modalities: Affect, Islam, and Turkish Classical Musicians

Denise Gill

ISBN 10: 0190495014 / ISBN 13: 9780190495015

Published by Oxford University Press May 2017, 2017

About this Item

Pages are very clean and bright with no markings. Trivial rubbing to the edges and corners. Binding is fine. First page is signed and inscribed by the author. Full number line indicating a first edition. Seller Inventory # 276625

Bibliographic Details

Title: Melancholic Modalities: Affect, Islam, and ...

Publisher: Oxford University Press May 2017

Publication Date: 2017

Binding: Paper Back

Condition: Very Good

Signed: Signed By Author

Edition: First Edition.

About this title

Synopsis:

Today, teachers and performers of Turkish classical music intentionally cultivate melancholies, despite these affects being typically dismissed as remnants of the Ottoman Empire. Melancholic Modalities is the first in-depth historical and ethnographic study of the practices socialized by musicians who enthusiastically teach and perform a present-day genre substantially rooted in the musics of the Ottoman court and elite Mevlevi Sufi lodges. Author Denise Gill analyzes how melancholic music-making emerges as pleasurable, spiritually redeeming, and healing for both the listener and performer.

Focusing on the diverse practices of musicians who deploy and circulate melancholy in sound, Gill interrogates the constitutive elements of these musicians' modalities in the context of emergent neoliberalism, secularism, political Islamism, Sufi devotionals, and the politics of psychological health in Turkey today. In an essential contribution to the study of ethnomusicology and psychology, Gill develops rhizomatic analyses to allow for musicians' multiple interpretations to be heard. Melancholic Modalities uncovers how emotion and musical meaning are connected, and how melancholy is articulated in the world of Turkish classical musicians. With her innovative concept of "bi-aurality," Gill's book forges new possibilities for the historical and ethnographic analyses of musics and ideologies of listening for music scholars.

About the Author:

Denise Elif Gill is an ethnomusicologist specializing in the musics of Turkey and former Ottoman territories. Her research engages music-making and affective practice, Islam, health, gender/sexuality, sound studies, and post-humanism. Her work has been funded by Fulbright and by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS).