Open AccessA "Stubbornly Persistent Illusion"?:
Author(s) -
Aaron S. Allen
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
european journal of musicology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2504-1916
DOI - 10.5450/ejm.18.1.2019.16
Subject(s) - face (sociological concept) , scholarship , panacea (medicine) , humanity , environmental ethics , climate change , environmental crisis , civilization , illusion , sociology , political science , social science , law , philosophy , psychology , ecology , medicine , alternative medicine , pathology , neuroscience , biology
The climate crisis impacts the northern polar regions in disproportionate ways, and ecomusicology is an academic discourse. In bringing these two seemingly unrelated pairs together, I argue for academic discourse in ecomusicology that makes connections with the climate crisis in music and sound studies. What can ecomusicology offer humanity as we face climate catastrophe? While not a panacea, ecomusicology can serve to further collapse the unfortunate nature-culture dichotomy that is at the root of so many social and environmental problems. Academic discourse always should have a place for titillation, but we must not avoid the climate crisis in music scholarship, for that only enables climate change denialism. I elaborate on an ecomusicology that is both new and not new, providing examples of climate connections in ecomusicological discourse. Ultimately, we must make such connections and do something about the problems we face as a civilization.