The Strange Music of Social Life

by Bell, Michael Mayerfeld; Abbott, Andrew (CON); Blau, Judith (CON); Crane, Diana (CON); Goetting, Ann

• ISBN13: 9781439907245
• ISBN10: 1439907242
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-06-17
• Publisher: Temple Univ Pr

Summary

The Strange Music of Social Lifepresents a dialogue on dialogic sociology, explored through the medium of music. Sociologist and composer Michael Mayerfeld Bell presents an argument that both sociology and classical music remain largely in the grip of a nineteenth-century totalizing ambition of prediction and control. He provides the refreshing approach of "strangency" to explain a sociology that tries to understand not only the regularities of social life but also the social conditions in which people do what we do not expect.Nine important sociologists and musicians respond-often vigorously-to the conversation Bell initiates by raising pivotal questions. The Strange Music of Social Lifeconcludes with Bell's reply to those responses

Author Biography

Michael Mayerfeld Bell is Professor of Community and Environmental Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author or editor of seven previous books, three of which have won national awards. He is also a composer of grassroots and classical music and is a mandolinist, guitarist, and singer. Ann Goetting is Professor of Sociology at Western Kentucky University. She is the author or editor of four previous books, including (with Sarah Fenstermaker) Individual Voices, Collective Visions: Fifty Years of Women in Sociology and (with Gary Paul Green) Mobilizing Communities: Asset Building as a Community Development Strategy (both Temple).

Table of Contents

Tuning Up
Program Notes	p. 3
Theme
Strange Music: Notes toward a Dialogic Sociology	p. 15
Development
Sociologizing the Strange: A Strong Program for a Weak Sociology	p. 55
Stranger Danger: Response to Michael Bell's "Strange Music"	p. 75
A Sisyphean Process? Dialogue on Dialogical Sociology	p. 91
Crowing a Chorus	p. 107
Why I Like Contemporary Classical Music and Contemporary Sociological Theory: Three Ironies of Michael Bell's "Strange Music"	p. 109
Response to Michael Bell: Reflections Based on Perspectives from Popular Culture, Fine Arts, and Globalization	p. 137
A Three-Part Recension	p. 147
Strange to the Structure: A Dialogue on "Strange Music," Performance Studies, Jazz Trumpet, and Billie Holiday	p. 169
Re-creating Music in the Moment: Reflections on Michael Bell's "Strange Music" and on Musical Performance	p. 185
Coda
If You Have All the Answers, You Don't Have All the Questions	p. 193
Contributors	p. 233
Index	p. 235
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