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

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Chad Augustine Córdova, "Toward a Premodern Posthumanism: Anarchic Ontologies of Earthly Life in Early Modern France" (Northwestern UP, 2025)

Chad Augustine Córdova, "Toward a Premodern Posthumanism: Anarchic Ontologies of Earthly Life in Early Modern France" (Northwestern UP, 2025)

What good is aesthetics in a time of ecological crisis? Toward a Premodern Posthumanism: Anarchic Ontologies of Earthly Life in Early Modern France (Northwestern UP, 2025) shows that philosophical aes...

6 Dec 202555min

Mark Griffiths, "Checkpoint 300: Colonial Space in Palestine" (U Minnesota Press, 2025)

Mark Griffiths, "Checkpoint 300: Colonial Space in Palestine" (U Minnesota Press, 2025)

Checkpoint 300, the highly securitized border facility between occupied Bethlehem and Jerusalem, is a central feature of Israeli control of Palestinian land and life. An apparatus of turnstiles, overc...

3 Dec 202547min

Matt Houlbrook, "Songs of Seven Dials: An Intimate History of 1920s and 1930s London" (Manchester UP, 2025)

Matt Houlbrook, "Songs of Seven Dials: An Intimate History of 1920s and 1930s London" (Manchester UP, 2025)

How has central London changed in the last 100 years? In Songs of Seven Dials An Intimate History of 1920s and 1930s London (Manchester UP, 2025), Matt Houlbrook, a Professor of Cultural History at t...

2 Dec 202553min

The Renaissance of Marxist Studies: A Discussion with Babak Amini

The Renaissance of Marxist Studies: A Discussion with Babak Amini

The last few years have seen a resurgence of interest in academic research in Marxism and related fields, and many researchers have been stepping up to the plate to offer rigorous analysis and critica...

1 Dec 202520min

Jean-Thomas Tremblay, "Breathing Aesthetics" (Duke UP, 2022)

Jean-Thomas Tremblay, "Breathing Aesthetics" (Duke UP, 2022)

In Breathing Aesthetics (Duke University Press (2022), Jean-Thomas Tremblay argues that difficult breathing indexes the uneven distribution of risk in a contemporary era marked by the increasing conta...

30 Nov 20251h 3min

Patrick Gamsby, "Henri Lefebvre, Metaphilosophy and Modernity" (Routledge, 2025)

Patrick Gamsby, "Henri Lefebvre, Metaphilosophy and Modernity" (Routledge, 2025)

Henri Lefebvre is a writer who has had many competing claims for ownership, from sociology to philosophy to urban geography, different scholars have attempted to grasp the nature of his thought. These...

30 Nov 202550min

Benjamin Balthaser, "Citizens of the Whole World: Anti-Zionism and the Cultures of the American Jewish Left" (Verso Books, 2025)

Benjamin Balthaser, "Citizens of the Whole World: Anti-Zionism and the Cultures of the American Jewish Left" (Verso Books, 2025)

Since October 7, 2023, the world has witnessed a massive American Jewish uprising in support of Palestinian liberation. Through sit-ins in Congress or Grand Central Terminal, through petitions and mar...

30 Nov 20251h 16min

Nicholas Gamso, "Art After Liberalism" (Columbia UP, 2022)

Nicholas Gamso, "Art After Liberalism" (Columbia UP, 2022)

Art After Liberalism (Columbia UP, 2022) is an account of creative practice at a moment of converging political and social rifts – a moment that could be described as a crisis of liberalism. The appar...

29 Nov 20251h 23min

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