Music and Justice: Revolutionary Measures

Catalog description

Examines music and its diverse role in society, including its impact on social and political control as well as its relationship to justice. Since the beginning of recorded history, music has played a significant role in the production of formal and informal social control. Societies use music as part of ritual and religious worship, entertainment, expression, communication and aesthetic pleasure as well as a means of political protest. However, music has also been effectively used by states, from liberal democracies to dictatorships, to compel obedience whether through propaganda or torture in inflicting and/or exacerbating pain and suffering. Indeed, current research reveals the powerful effects of music at a cellular level to mobilize people.