An Ethnomusicologist’s Last Lecture

This book critically addresses the conventional practices of studies on music, while taking readers through various global examples of musical expression.

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An Ethnomusicologist’s Last Lecture: Music and Globalism, Philosophy and Religion explores the frustration of many scholars and artists with the content and directions of studies on music, which continue to be mostly based on Western thought, methods, theories, and even the modes of communicating ideas, and mostly through written, published works. Steven Loza argues that this pattern has pervaded both philosophy and ethnomusicology, fields which should be much more globally based in terms of intellectual analysis, culturally diverse points of view, and the recognition of multiple ways of thinking and doing. He criticizes what he perceives as an intellectual hegemony and biased approach to studying music, including the standards to which academics are held responsible, the manner in which we and our students have had to study music, and the forms by which we are pressured to present our findings, many times adapting theories and ideas that have nothing to do with the cultures we are examining through a one way microscope – and often a distorted lens. Loza takes the reader through an assortment of historical and contemporary global examples of musical expression, creative artists, and thinkers, looking for ways that we can assess how music both reflects and enacts culturally diverse peoples’ beliefs, thoughts, and world views.