Bringing together humanities, sciences and practice within musicology and psychology

1
Bringing together humanities, sciences and
practice within musicology and psychology

• Richard Parncutt
• University of Graz, Austria
• 25th anniversary conference of the German Society
  for Music Psychology, 12-14 September 2008
• This file was revised and extended following the
  presentation.

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Etymology

• Musicology the study of music
• any study of any music
• Psychology the study of soul, self or mind
• (e.g. via behavior and experience)
• ? any study of any soul, self or mind

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Which is more important?

• Object of research
• person
• music

• Context of object
• society
• history
• culture

4
Alterity and the Other

• The subject (speaker/writer)
• tacitly assumes a superior position
• perceives Other relative to that position
• Examples
• gender alterity
• women the Other sex
• cultural alterity
• non-western Other peoples
• academic alterity
• humanities Other disciplines

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Music-Ology

• Object of research
• music in different representations
• signal, experience, performance, memory, score
• systematic musicology
• (the Other musicology)
• Context of object
• society, history, culture
• historical musicology ethnomusicology
• (the Real musicology)

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Psych-Ology

• Object of research
• behavior/experience of individuals
• psychology
• (the Real study of human behavior)
• Context of object
• human society, history, culture
• anthropology
• (the Other study of human behavior)

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and by the wayScience is not Wissenschaft!

• In modern British and American English, science
  implies positivist scholarship
• ? natural sciences
• disciplines with similar methods (e.g. social
  sciences)
• Humanities and sciences
• are mutually exclusive categories!
• Wissenschaft scholarship, research,
  academe
• wissenschaftlich scholarly, research-based,
  academic

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HumanitiesSome slightly dangerous generalisations

• object of research
• specific manifestations of culture (e.g. music
  performances, works)
• epistemology (knowledge acquisition, truth)
• personal experience and observation
• intuition and introspection
• expert discussion (a kind of intersubjectivity)
• research methods
• qualitative, analytic, critical, speculative,
  subjective
• researchers
• institutionally qualified or well recognized
• expected to come to different conclusions

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Sciences (of culture)More slightly dangerous
generalisations

• object of research
• general issues (about culture, e.g. what is
  musical emotion?)
• epistemology
• systematic observation
• data analysis
• comparison of hypotheses with evidence
• research methods
• quantitative, data-orientiert, empirical,
  objective
• researchers
• not necessarily institutionally qualified or well
  recognized
• expected to come to similar conclusions (the
  implied truth)

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Subjectivity, objectivityAmbiguous value
judgments!

• Three cases
• 1. the research object itself (Geist / Natur)
• 2. distance between researcher research object
• 3. agreement among researchers
• Subjectivity is considered
• good in humanities
• bad in sciences

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Music (ology) according to Nicholas Cook Music
A very short introduction (Oxford, 1998)

• Exposes musicological prejudices against
• popular and non-western musics (musical Others)
• women and non-westerners (human Others)
• Seems unaware of prejudice against
• musical sciences
• non-Angloamerican musicology
• Contents page could have included
• musical perception, cognition, emotion
• music, rhythm and movement
• music and personality development of ability
• music, the body and the brain
• the nature, functions and origins of music

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Academe A very short introductionSome broad
generalizations and idealisations
century progress character of univer-sities strong discip-lines academic approach role of indi-vidual conflict main languages
17th scientific revolution religious sciences (physics, medicine) observation, deduction search for truth church Latin, national lan-guages
18th Enligh-tenment religious humanities (history, arts, literature) rational thinking human rights, freedom of speech royalty, aristo-cracy national lan-guages
19th modern university (German model) secular all - but mainly humanities institution-alisation (expansion, structure) as above colo-nialism, racism German, national lan-guages
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Academe A very short introductionSome broad
generalizations and idealisations
cent-ury nature of uni-versities main idea main dis-ciplines role of individual main languages
20th public technological explosion sciences toward equal rights for women and foreigners English and national languages
21st virtual? information explosion all not knowledge, but ability to find and interpret information English
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Academe A very short introduction Dominance of
sciences in the 20th century

• scientific progress
• physics atom, universe nuclear weapons
  (Einstein)
• biology evolutionary thinking (Darwin)
• explosion of technologies
• positive impact on everyday life
• exacerbation of international conflict

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(Music) psychology becomes a science

• Fechner, 1801-1887
• Helmholtz, 1821-1894
• Wundt, 1832-1920
• Why?
• Introspective psychology is subjective in all
  three ways
• research object researcher
• no distance between researcher and object
• diverse findings and theories
• Empirical methods are possible
• e.g. psychophysics

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(Music) history remains in humanities

• Why?
• History is less subjective than introspective
  psychology
• research object not necessarily the researcher
• more distance between researcher and object
• tolerable diversity of findings and theories
• Empirical methods are impossible
• composers and listeners mostly unavailable
• performance traditions lost or uncertain

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German historical musicology and international
music psychology todayA strained relationship

• Two sources of long-term resentment
• English, the international academic language
• German, the Other language
• Sciences, the main form of scholarship
• Humanities the Other scholarship

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Academe in the 21st centuryRevival of the
humanities?

• Technology
• quality of life
• in industrialised countries
• self-destruction of humanity
• exhaustion of resources
• climate change
• nuclear war

• Culture
• human identity
• interculturality
• means to prevent intercultural conflict?

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The return of the humanities

• create new institutions
• Islamic studies
• intercultural studies
• improve finances
• research (positions and support)
• professorships
• improve quality control
• peer review
• teaching evaluation
• reward interdisciplinarity
• especially with sciences
• (natural, social, formal)

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Categorization of disciplinesSome problems

• Psychology as science
• power obsession with methods and statistics
• content neglect of cultural, historical,
  political and even social (!) contexts and
  implications
• quality obsession with peer review and English
• Musicology as humanities
• power domination by qualified/eminent
  researchers
• content neglect of research methods, which
  determine content/validity of findings in any
  discipline
• quality rejection of peer-review and English

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Categorization of disciplines

• good for administrators ?
• strengthens hierarchy
• ?faster decisions
• ?less conflict
• bad for academic creativity ?
• suppresses interdisciplinarity
• ?biased answers to central questions
• ?myopic academic culture
• ?Interdisciplinarity must be directly promoted!

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Abstracts at ICMPC10Sapporo, Japan, 2008
Subjective classification based on main content
of abstract
Other methods, pedagogy, software development,
analysis
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International music psychologyToo much
data-oriented empiricism!

• We need a better balance of
• empirical and theoretical papers
• pure and applied research

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German music psychologyNo problem ?

• institutionalisation of music psychology
• Germany mp is a musicological Other
  (systematic)
• USA mp is officially external to musicology
• recent German texts on music psychology
• Oerter Stoffer
• de la Motte Rötter
• Bruhn, Kopiez Lehmann
• Needed English translation of the best chapters

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Expansion and specialisation

• typical duration of study and doctorate
• 10 years or 10 000 hours (Ericsson)
• expansion of research literature
• specialisation, subdisciplines,
  sub-subdisciplines
• experts no longer know their own discipline!
• ?Plausible expertise in both humanities and
  sciences is no longer possible!
• ?Collaboration is inevitable!

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Collaboration humanities?sciencesWhy is it so
difficult?

• very different concepts of truth
• nature
• acquisition
• application
• political dominance of sciences
• sciences deep-seated arrogance
• humanities deep-seated resentment

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Discrimination in psychology, musicology

• increasing power of dominant subdisciplines
• democratic professorial selection procedures tend
  to
• squeeze out disciplinary minorities
• sharpen disciplinary categorizations
• reduce interdisciplinary collaboration
• increase dependency of truth on power
  (Foucault)
• solution complex, sensitive democracy
• not only one person, one vote
• but also explicit promotion of minorities
  interdisciplinarity
• (explicit financial!)

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Collegiality academic productivity20th-century
contexts

• If interdisciplinary collaboration is necessary,
  collegiality is also necessary! But we cannot
  take it for granted

• social and historical context
• schools decline of religion and moral education
• undergraduate study no training in academic
  collegiality
• research, teaching collegiality within, not
  between disciplines
• politics and economics neo-liberalism, Geiz ist
  geil
• academic context
• cold war between humanities and sciences
• multiple distinctions between Real and Other
  disciplines
• evolutionary psychology harassment is natural

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Achieving academic collegialitySome general
strategies

• clarity
• non-overlapping job descriptions
• mission statements, transparency
• supportive atmosphere
• recognition of achievement
• mutual constructive criticism
• solidarity
• objective quality control
• teaching student and expert evaluation
• research peer review
• fair competition
• common goal academic quality
• ? mutual trust and respect

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Achieving academic collegialitySome specific
strategies

• awareness raising, discussion
• discrimination of Others (sexual, racial,
  academic)
• definitions of collegiality
• strategy development
• guidelines to promote collegial culture
• research
• publication of objective performance indices
• effect of diversity on creativity and
  productivity?
• selection procedures
• professors, administrators
• statements on collegiality, affirmative action
• rewards for good practice
• ceremonies, awards, financial incentives

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History of collegiality

• Sharing of responsibility in
• Roman republic
• Catholic church
• Reformation universities (16th C.) trained
  humanism
• civilised behavior
• social responsibility
• promotion of culture
• Walter Rüegg (Ed., 1992). A history of the
  university in Europe, Vol. 1 Universities in the
  Middle Ages. Cambridge University Press.

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Collegiality and the 19th-Century German
university model

• Humboldts educational ideal
• combination of arts and specialised academic
  discipline
• unity of research and teaching
• academic freedom through independence from
  private sector
• Teachers and learners are
• autonomous citizens of the world
• concerned with global issues such as peace,
  justice, cultural exchange, natural environment
• common goals and supportive atmosphere
• collegiality

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Antifascism in global scholarship

• Fascism (especially Nazism) is based on
• belief in the fundamental superiority of ones
  own group
• and involves
• institutionalised victim mentality, intolerance,
  envy, marginalisation
• authoritarian rule, violence, instability,
  destruction
• Historical, sociological, evolutionary evidence
• Fascism is latent in all cultural groups incl.
  countries disciplines
• ?Antifascism is necessary in all countries
  disciplines
• Antifascism is based on
• fundamental respect for both Own and Other groups
• and involves
• institutionalised empowerment, acceptance,
  collegiality, solidarity
• democracy, peace, stability, abundance
• cf. Kenneth Westhues academic mobbing

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Spinoffs of academic collegialityin conjunction
with performance orientation

• job satisfaction
• ?psychological identification with institution
• conflict-free environment
• ?openness diversity of opinions/approaches
• intrinsic and extrinsic motivation
• ?willingness to perform and serve
• risk taking and entrepreneural attitude
• ? academic creativity!

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Collegiality and performance orientationA spiral
of positive reinforcement?

• ?improved research and teaching
• ?recognition of university and its members
• ?attractivity for external academics and students
  
• good job applicants good students
• even better research and teaching
• even more recognition
• even better staff and students

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Tips for scientists Take humanities seriously!

• investigate, teach and report the historical,
  social and cultural background and implications
  of research
• present sciences as dangerous, humanities as a
  solution
• expose and reduce arrogance
• in (music) psychology
• more logic, speculation, reflection
• cultural turn (Allesch)

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Tips for humanities scholarsOpen up!

• develop / publish methodologies for specific
  purposes
• integrate scientific / computational methods
• be more international (not necessarily in
  English)
• create / support peer-review conferences and
  journals
• collaborate!

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Tips for both humanities and sciences

• study, apply, develop qualitative methods
• Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis
• systematic exposure of researcher bias
• explicity promote collegiality at all levels