Ray Brassier, Jean-Luc Guionnet, Seijiro Murayama, Mattin: Idioms and Idiots (2010)

“We are all interested in philosophy. One of us is a professional philosopher interested in music. The others invited him to collaborate on a project. The precise nature of this collaboration is to be determined: he is not a musician and has never participated in any sort of musical performance. He agrees to collaborate but neither he nor the others have any idea what form the collaboration will take. We did something together: a concert. We want to try to explain it to ourselves: What happened exactly? How did it happen? And why? … We want to recount the story of the process, but not only that; we also want to recapitulate all the discussions that took place before and afterwards (right up to the present), articulating the questions posed by the concert – questions that are both abstractly theoretical and very concrete. Our hope is that in doing so, the experience of the concert will allow us to attain a better understanding of the representation of art in art. ”

Released by w.m.o/r, #35, May 2010
CD with 36 pages booklet

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Timothy Morton: Ecology Without Nature: Rethinking Environmental Aesthetics (2007)

“In Ecology without Nature, Timothy Morton argues that the chief stumbling block to environmental thinking is the image of nature itself. Ecological writers propose a new worldview, but their very zeal to preserve the natural world leads them away from the “nature” they revere. The problem is a symptom of the ecological catastrophe in which we are living. Morton sets out a seeming paradox: to have a properly ecological view, we must relinquish the idea of nature once and for all.

Ranging widely in eighteenth-century through contemporary philosophy, culture, and history, Morton explores the value of art in imagining environmental projects for the future. Morton develops a vocabulary for reading “environmentality” in artistic form as well as content, and traces the contexts of ecological constructs through the history of capitalism. From John Clare to John Cage, from Kierkegaard to Kristeva, from The Lord of the Rings to electronic life forms, Ecology without Nature extends the view of ecological criticism. Instead of trying to use an idea of nature to heal what society has damaged, Morton sets out a new form of ecological criticism: “dark ecology.””

Publisher Harvard University Press, 2007
ISBN 0674024346, 9780674024342
249 pages

Reviews: Keegan (Studies in Romanticism, 2008), Philips (Oxford Literary Review, 2010), Holmes (Journal of Ecocriticism, 2012).

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Joscelyn Godwin: Music and the Occult: French Musical Philosophies, 1750-1950 (1995)

This book is an adventure into the unexplored territory of French esoteric philosophies and their relation to music. Occultism and esotericism flourished in nineteenth-century France as they did nowhere else. Many philosophers sought the key to the universe, some claimed to have found it, and, in the unitive vision that resulted, music invariably played an important part. These modern Pythagoreans all believed in the Harmony of the Spheres and in the powerful effects of music on the human soul and body. Faced with the challenge of the rationalist Enlightenment, then with that of modern scientism, they adapted their occultism to the prevailing style. A widely published musicologist and authority on esotericism, Godwin is able to give a clear and concise context for these philosophers’ often surprising beliefs, and he demonstrates how this “speculative music” influenced composers such as Satie and Debussy, who were familiar with occultism. His long study of music and the Western esoteric tradition makes him uniquely qualified to unravel the strange story of these forgotten sages.

Publisher University of Rochester Press, 1995
Volume 3 of Eastman studies in music
ISBN 1878822535, 9781878822536
261 pages

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PDF (updated on 2013-4-14)