David Hesmondhalgh, “Why Music Matters” (Wiley Blackwell, 2014)

David Hesmondhalgh, “Why Music Matters” (Wiley Blackwell, 2014)

What is the value of music and why does it matter? These are the core questions in David Hesmondhalgh‘s new book Why Music Matters (Wiley Blackwell, 2014). The book attempts a critical defence of music in the face of both uncritical populist post-modernism and more economistic neo-liberal understandings of music’s worth. Hesmondhalgh develops this critical defence of music by exploring its importance to individuals, to places, to communities and to nations, eventually engaging with the global aspects of music’s role and position in society. The book seeks to argue against some common positions in music, reasserting the importance of embodied experiences, such as dancing, whilst taking issue with the idea of the rock star as hero. Moreover Hesmondhalgh shows the social position and social structures surrounding music, whilst remaining attentive to the aesthetic qualities of both genres and individual pieces of music. Most notably the book is ambivalent about much of the promises claimed by the advocates of music’s transformative potential, but is never bleak, retaining a refreshing realism about the capacity of music to matter to people, publics and nations across the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Episoder(2194)

Alec Ryrie, "The Age of Hitler and How We Will Survive It" (Reaktion, 2025)

Alec Ryrie, "The Age of Hitler and How We Will Survive It" (Reaktion, 2025)

Examining everything from popular novels to politics, an investigation of persistent fascination with Nazis—and where it might take us. We live in an age where Hitler and the Nazis dominate our cultu...

15 Mar 53min

Susannah B. Mintz, "Hypochondria: In Sickness and in Story" (Reaktion, 2026)

Susannah B. Mintz, "Hypochondria: In Sickness and in Story" (Reaktion, 2026)

Hypochondria: In Sickness and in Story (Reaktion, 2026) proposes a bold reimagining of a frequently dismissed condition. Dr. Susannah B. Mintz reframes health anxiety not as a pathology but as a site ...

15 Mar 51min

Tristan J. Rogers, "Conservatism, Past and Present: A Philosophical Introduction" (Routledge, 2025)

Tristan J. Rogers, "Conservatism, Past and Present: A Philosophical Introduction" (Routledge, 2025)

In Conservatism, Past and Present: A Philosophical Introduction (Routledge, 2025), Tristan J. Rogers argues that philosophical conservatism is a coherent and compelling set of historically rooted i...

14 Mar 1h 14min

Yanshuo Zhang, "Creative Belonging: The Qiang and Multiethnic Imagination in Modern China" (U Michigan Press, 2026)

Yanshuo Zhang, "Creative Belonging: The Qiang and Multiethnic Imagination in Modern China" (U Michigan Press, 2026)

China is a multicultural country home to fifty-five ethnic minority groups, yet due to linguistic and cultural barriers many of these groups remain understudied or unknown in the West. The Qiang, one ...

14 Mar 44min

Wendy Brown, "States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity" (Princeton UP, 2025)

Wendy Brown, "States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity" (Princeton UP, 2025)

A sympathetic critique that attempts to free Left politics from its own snares, States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity (Princeton University Press, 2025) explores how woundedness became...

12 Mar 41min

What’s on Her Mind: The Mental Workload of Family Life

What’s on Her Mind: The Mental Workload of Family Life

Mothers and fathers use their time differently, with women spending roughly twice as many hours on family labor as men. But what about the gendered differences in the ways women and men think? What’s ...

12 Mar 50min

Sari Hanafi, "Against Symbolic Liberalism: A Plea for Dialogical Sociology" (Liverpool UP, 2025)

Sari Hanafi, "Against Symbolic Liberalism: A Plea for Dialogical Sociology" (Liverpool UP, 2025)

In an era of deepening polarization, Sari Hanafi examines how social scientists often reproduce the very injustices they seek to challenge, taking entrenched positions while dismissing alternative per...

11 Mar 50min

Jacob Stegenga, "Heart of Science: A Philosophy of Scientific Inquiry" (U Chicago Press, 2026)

Jacob Stegenga, "Heart of Science: A Philosophy of Scientific Inquiry" (U Chicago Press, 2026)

In Heart of Science: A Philosophy of Scientific Inquiry (University of Chicago Press, 2026), philosopher Jacob Stegenga breaks with the most dominant epistemologies of science to argue that in judging...

10 Mar 48min

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