Music and Affect

This seminar will review recent work in affect theory and its application to musical practice. It will also explore how theoretical perspectives on relationships between music and the emotions, beginning in the eighteenth century and extending through to the twenty-first, suggest reformulations both to affect theory and to the way it might be applied to music. Seminar discussions will be focused on readings from affect theory, the history of music theory, music psychology, and cognitive psychology, and detailed consideration of musical works from a range of musical traditions.