Samuel J Wilson
Biographic Data
| ID | 9709754 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Samuel J Wilson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Samuel J |
| FAMILY NAME | Wilson |
| SIGNATURE | WILSON S J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Guildhall School of Music and Drama |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8780-6266 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 8 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 5 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 8 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1965 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Neoliberal Reason, Contemporary Music, and Proximal Critique
Theodor W. Adorno suggested that music is mediated by socially derived forms of reason, a provocation here considered with respect to neoliberalism. Drawing on a Foucauldian understanding of neoliberalism, which in Wendy Brown's summary takes neoliberalism as ‘a specific and normative mode of reason’, I consider what this means for immanent features of music and processes of its composition. This critical attention to music's formal, aesthetic re…
Adam Blum, Peter Goldberg & Michael Levin, Here I’m Alive: The Spirit of Music in Psychoanalysis
Strategies of Conquest and Defence: Encounters with the Object in Twentieth-Century Music
Reacting to recent materialist developments in music studies and beyond, I argue for the value of dialectics in accounting for compositional orientations vis-à-vis their objects - be these objects sound-producing, non-human entities, such as musical instruments, or the object that is 'sound itself '. Engaging the compositional thought and practice of Busoni, Russolo, Varèse, Cage and Tudor by way of example, I highlight two intersecting tendencie…
Introductionmusical Materialisms (Plural)
A distinct if diverse musical research area has begun to emerge in recent years. While there is enough common ground to define it as a research field, its objects and themes are not yet delineated
Notes on Adorno’s ‘Musical Material’ During the New Materialisms
In this article I develop a dialogue between Theodor W. Adorno’s concept of musical material and aspects of ‘new materialist’ thinking. Correspondences and tensions are explored within and between Adorno’s materialism and contemporary materialist perspectives (with particular reference to Jane Bennett’s ‘vital materialism’). Three main issues are discussed. First, musical materials and materialities are considered as not only passive but, potenti…
The composition of posthuman bodies
A collision of two thoughts on prostheses provides a point of theoretical ignition for this article: the first is that ‘the musical instrument is a prosthetic augmentation of the human body, enabling the body to exceed itself’ [Johnson, Julian. 2015. Out of Time: Music and the Making of Modernity. Oxford: Oxford University Press]; the second is that ‘the posthuman view thinks of the body as the original prosthesis we all learn to manipulate’ [Hay…
Building an Instrument, Building an Instrumentalist: Helmut Lachenmann'sSerynade
In Helmut Lachenmann's Serynade (1998, revised 2000), the solo piano is explored as a pianistic resource from which to build a new instrument and new experiential relationships to it. Drawing on Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of embodiment, I show that implicit to building instruments are encounters with wider aesthetic and historical questions—particularly of the relationships between the body and technology as they mutually mediate one a…
The Thought of Cicero: Philosophical Selections
First published in 1964 and aimed at advanced school students, this useful collection contains forty passages, coherent in themselves, illustrating Cicero's thinking on government, religion, law and ethics. An introduction gives the essential background, including a brief outline of Greek philosophy. There are practical notes on the texts, observations on Cicero's style and a select vocabulary
Notes on Adorno’s ‘Musical Material’ During the New Materialisms
In this article I develop a dialogue between Theodor W. Adorno’s concept of musical material and aspects of ‘new materialist’ thinking. Correspondences and tensions are explored within and between Adorno’s materialism and contemporary materialist perspectives (with particular reference to Jane Bennett’s ‘vital materialism’). Three main issues are discussed. First, musical materials and materialities are considered as not only passive but, potenti…
Building an Instrument, Building an Instrumentalist: Helmut Lachenmann'sSerynade
In Helmut Lachenmann's Serynade (1998, revised 2000), the solo piano is explored as a pianistic resource from which to build a new instrument and new experiential relationships to it. Drawing on Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of embodiment, I show that implicit to building instruments are encounters with wider aesthetic and historical questions—particularly of the relationships between the body and technology as they mutually mediate one a…
Strategies of Conquest and Defence: Encounters with the Object in Twentieth-Century Music
Reacting to recent materialist developments in music studies and beyond, I argue for the value of dialectics in accounting for compositional orientations vis-à-vis their objects - be these objects sound-producing, non-human entities, such as musical instruments, or the object that is 'sound itself '. Engaging the compositional thought and practice of Busoni, Russolo, Varèse, Cage and Tudor by way of example, I highlight two intersecting tendencie…
The Thought of Cicero: Philosophical Selections
First published in 1964 and aimed at advanced school students, this useful collection contains forty passages, coherent in themselves, illustrating Cicero's thinking on government, religion, law and ethics. An introduction gives the essential background, including a brief outline of Greek philosophy. There are practical notes on the texts, observations on Cicero's style and a select vocabulary
Building an Instrument, Building an Instrumentalist: Helmut Lachenmann'sSerynade
In Helmut Lachenmann's Serynade (1998, revised 2000), the solo piano is explored as a pianistic resource from which to build a new instrument and new experiential relationships to it. Drawing on Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of embodiment, I show that implicit to building instruments are encounters with wider aesthetic and historical questions—particularly of the relationships between the body and technology as they mutually mediate one a…
The composition of posthuman bodies
A collision of two thoughts on prostheses provides a point of theoretical ignition for this article: the first is that ‘the musical instrument is a prosthetic augmentation of the human body, enabling the body to exceed itself’ [Johnson, Julian. 2015. Out of Time: Music and the Making of Modernity. Oxford: Oxford University Press]; the second is that ‘the posthuman view thinks of the body as the original prosthesis we all learn to manipulate’ [Hay…
Notes on Adorno’s ‘Musical Material’ During the New Materialisms
In this article I develop a dialogue between Theodor W. Adorno’s concept of musical material and aspects of ‘new materialist’ thinking. Correspondences and tensions are explored within and between Adorno’s materialism and contemporary materialist perspectives (with particular reference to Jane Bennett’s ‘vital materialism’). Three main issues are discussed. First, musical materials and materialities are considered as not only passive but, potenti…
Strategies of Conquest and Defence: Encounters with the Object in Twentieth-Century Music
Reacting to recent materialist developments in music studies and beyond, I argue for the value of dialectics in accounting for compositional orientations vis-à-vis their objects - be these objects sound-producing, non-human entities, such as musical instruments, or the object that is 'sound itself '. Engaging the compositional thought and practice of Busoni, Russolo, Varèse, Cage and Tudor by way of example, I highlight two intersecting tendencie…
Introductionmusical Materialisms (Plural)
A distinct if diverse musical research area has begun to emerge in recent years. While there is enough common ground to define it as a research field, its objects and themes are not yet delineated
Neoliberal Reason, Contemporary Music, and Proximal Critique
Theodor W. Adorno suggested that music is mediated by socially derived forms of reason, a provocation here considered with respect to neoliberalism. Drawing on a Foucauldian understanding of neoliberalism, which in Wendy Brown's summary takes neoliberalism as ‘a specific and normative mode of reason’, I consider what this means for immanent features of music and processes of its composition. This critical attention to music's formal, aesthetic re…
Adam Blum, Peter Goldberg & Michael Levin, Here I’m Alive: The Spirit of Music in Psychoanalysis
Art (7 works) · Aesthetics (6 works) · Musicology and Musical Analysis (6 works) · Philosophy (6 works) · Music History and Culture (5 works) · Epistemology (4 works) · Literature (4 works) · Musical (4 works) · Psychology (3 works) · Sociology (3 works)