Adorno's philosophical writings on music are notably focused on the new, invested in positioning the challenging avant‐garde works of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern as the modernist mainstream. Nevertheless, Adorno's relationship with this “Second Viennese School” of composers was characterized by ongoing complexities, contradictions, and dissonances. His conflicted position is theorized here on multiple levels, considering not only Adorno's mature philosophy of the New Music, but his own musical‐creative output, and his relationships with the members of the Second Viennese School; a (...) group he was intimately connected to and distinct from at once. As his composition teacher, Berg was particularly influential in shaping Adorno's compositional activity and stance as simultaneously a champion and critic of Schoenberg. Adorno attempted to apply Schoenberg's twelve‐tone technique within his own compositions, recognizing its promise, yet from early on he had growing critical and compositional reservations concerning the method's restrictions. Though Adorno's writings from the 1930s defend Schoenberg and the twelve‐tone technique, by the end of the following decade, his Philosophy of New Music (2006 [1949]) expounds his critique of the method for its eschewal of the freedom of Expressionism. The impact of the Philosophy of New Music in the wake of the Second World War was both greater than and different from what Adorno could have expected. His message that the twelve‐tone method came at the cost of expressivity was largely missed by the subsequent generation of avant‐garde composers, the “Darmstadt School,” who understood the book as philosophical and theoretical basis for their extended exploration of music's serial systematization. (shrink)

Adorno unquestionably loved opera music as much as he hated opera as a cultural institution. His take on opera in the twentieth century led him to write its socio‐political obituary, while recognizing at the same time that opera continued to attract a steady stream of would‐be onlooker‐auditors. Paradoxically for Adorno, opera continued to appeal to audiences, and – from his dialectical reckoning – characteristically for precisely the wrong reasons. His opera analyses address the sociology of musical theater, performance hermeneutics, and (...) the direct consideration of music itself (though given his typical writing mode this writing is perhaps best characterized as criticism rather than analysis, as the latter term is commonly employed within musicology). Adorno's interests principally revolve around modern opera (Schoenberg, Berg, Strauss, Weill, especially) but also, if to a lesser extent, canonic works from Mozart to Verdi. Wagner, Wagnerian music drama, and cultural Wagnerism more generally were special cases for Adorno, and subjects he returned to repeatedly throughout his adult life, coinciding with the rise and fall of National Socialism and the Wagner cult, which in the 1930s and 1940s war years comfortably accommodated fascist proclivities. Adorno recognized the socio‐cultural agency of opera as a still‐prestigious cultural leftover of nineteenth‐century bourgeois triumphalism, which he vigorously opposed. In its place, he labored to promote what he regarded as a more socially responsible musico‐operatic practice to supplant the aesthetic and social complacency of the established order, ideas that after his death have found considerable currency, nowhere more evident than in late‐modern opera productions throughout the world. (shrink)

«Music is no mere play of sound, no mere tonal texture, but has a significant psychic, spiritual/intellectual and social dimension. In other words: a musical art work is not merely an autonomous artifact but also document humain.» With this thesis - and with a view to the question as to the meaning of music as such - the author opens his broadly designed plea for a «humane music.» Based on interdisciplinary researches, and making use of partly unfamiliar documents, he demonstrates (...) on musical works from Monteverdi to Alban Berg how and why they can be heard and understood as a tonal language specifically of love. The study investigates the question of how changes in the conception of love are reflected in music and concludes with a warning of a dehumanized world. (shrink)

In Nietzsche’s mature work reflections, marked by the elaboration of a semiotic conception of music, pain plays a central role in music. In order to extract its full potential, it is very fruitful to confront it with Theodor W. Adorno’s philosophy of music and his reading of Nietzschean texts. All that will be aimed at the main task of this study: to extract the guidelines of a ‘philosophical semiotics of music’, as a proposal for the present. And as a conclusion, (...) its application to Alban Berg’s work. (shrink)

Ce livre interroge les passages entre dire et chanter, leurs usages, leurs contraintes, les multiples façons dont ils sont nommés et mis en oeuvre, leurs enjeux esthétiques, poétiques, dramaturgiques ou anthropologiques. Il rassemble dix-sept essais comme autant d'études de cas, autour de quatre axes: " Le chant des mots "; " Représentations de la parole et enjeux dramaturgiques "; " Du souffle au cri "; " Voix plurielles et identité ". De multiples états du dit/chanté sont abordés: des manifestations du (...) parlé sur la scène de l'opéra au me siècle au retour actuel de la mélodie parlante orchestrale, des formes vocales exploratoires des années soixante aux modes du chant en poésie, de l'extra-vocalité provocatrice des XXe et XXIe siècles aux musiques rituelles où il n'est plus seulement question de chanter mais aussi de servir avec sa voix. L'ouvrage tient ensemble musicologie, ethnomusicologie et poétique. Il rend compte de structures, de pratiques et de typologies. Les oeuvres étudiées sont entre autres celles de Bernd Aloïs Zimmermann, Jonathan Harvey, Paul Valéry, Jules Massenet, Alban Berg, Claude Debussy, Manuel de Falla, Francis Poulenc, Jean Cocteau, les Beatles, les Pink Floyd, les Who, Helmut Lachenman, Yoshihisa Taïra, Jean-Christophe Marti, Franz Koglmann et aussi des chants liturgiques coptes de Haute-Egypte, de l'Eglise apostolique arménienne d'Istanbul ou encore la musique carnatique d'Inde du Sud. (shrink)

Theodor Adorno is one of this century's most influential thinkers in the areas of social theory, philosophy, aesthetics, and music. Throughout the essays in this book, all of which concern musical matters, he displays an astonishing range of cultural reference, demonstrating that music is invariably social, political, even ethical. Adorno's insistence on the social character of aesthetic works will come as no surprise to those familiar with his writings, although many may be surprised by the volume's somewhat colloquial tone. This (...) colloquialism, in dialogue with Adorno's unceasing rigor, stems from the occasional sources of many of the essays, mainly public lectures and radio addresses. As such, this volume represents an important and, for English-language readers, largely unfamiliar side to Adorno. His arguments move more quickly than in his more formal and extended musicological works, and the writing is much more accessible and generous than his usually dense and frequently opaque prose. This volume includes essays on prominent figures in music (Alban Berg, Anton von Webern, Arturo Toscanini), compositional technique (the prehistory of the twelve-tone row, the function of counterpoint in new music), and the larger questions of musical sociology for which Adorno is most famous, including the relation of interpretation to audience, the ideological function of opera, and the historical meaning of musical technique. The essay on the sociology of music, for example, represents an early statement of what would soon become trademark principles of his mode of musical analysis, serving as a catalyst for his famous study Introduction to the Sociology of Music. Some forty years after most of these essays were written, they remain fresh and relevant. In part, this is because Adorno's method has only recently begun to make substantial inroads into Anglo-American musicology. And the interdisciplinary nature of his thought provides a precursor for today's interdisciplinary studies. (shrink)

This chapter is intended to provide the reader with a brief biographical overview of Adorno's life and thought, with an emphasis on the key turning points in his career. It discusses his childhood, his education in Frankfurt, his musical studies, his emigration first to Oxford and then to the United States, his return to Germany after the Second World War, his tenure as professor at the Goethe Universität Frankfurt and his prominence as a public intellectual, and his confrontation with students. (...) Together with biographical details the chapter also offers a simple overview of Adorno's major concerns as a philosopher. (shrink)

This research investigates 3- and 5-year-olds' relative fairness in distributing small collections of even or odd numbers of more or less desirable candies, either with an adult experimenter or between two dolls. The authors compare more than 200 children from around the world, growing up in seven highly contrasted cultural and economic contexts, from rich and poor urban areas, to small-scale traditional and rural communities. Across cultures, young children tend to optimize their own gain, not showing many signs of self-sacrifice (...) or generosity. Already by 3 years of age, self-optimizing in distributive justice is based on perspective taking and rudiments of mind reading. By 5 years, overall, children tend to show more fairness in sharing. What varies across cultures is the magnitude of young children's self-interest. More fairness (less self-interest) in distributive justice is evident by children growing up in small-scale urban and traditional societies thought to promote more collective values. (shrink)

Research skills are important for university graduates, but little is known about undergraduates’ motivation for research. In this study, self-efficacy beliefs and intrinsic motivation for several research activities were measured three times during an undergraduate research project. In order to promote self-efficacy for writing and collaboration, a collaboration script was developed and tested on half of the students. Twelve students were interviewed three times to gather in-depth information about motivational and self-efficacy beliefs. All measures except intrinsic motivation for research increased (...) significantly during the project. Interview results suggest that enactive mastery and positive social interdependence promoted self-efficacy. Feelings of relatedness seemed to promote intrinsic motivation for writing. Lack of autonomy and low perceived relevance may explain why motivation for research remained stable. The script had no impact on self-efficacy beliefs. Relatedness,... (shrink)

This paper presents the first bibliometric mapping analysis of the field of computer and information ethics (C&IE). It provides a map of the relations between 400 key terms in the field. This term map can be used to get an overview of concepts and topics in the field and to identify relations between information and communication technology concepts on the one hand and ethical concepts on the other hand. To produce the term map, a data set of over thousand articles (...) published in leading journals and conference proceedings in the C&IE field was constructed. With the help of various computer algorithms, key terms were identified in the titles and abstracts of the articles and co-occurrence frequencies of these key terms were calculated. Based on the co-occurrence frequencies, the term map was constructed. This was done using a computer program called VOSviewer. The term map provides a visual representation of the C&IE field and, more specifically, of the organization of the field around three main concepts, namely privacy, ethics, and the Internet. (shrink)

This book provides an introduction to postphenomenology, an emerging school of thought in the philosophy of technology and science and technology studies, which addresses the relationships users develop with the devices they use.

BackgroundAntipsychotic-induced weight gain is a contributing factor in the reduced life expectancy reported amongst people with psychotic disorders. CYP2D6 is a liver enzyme involved in the metabolism of many commonly used antipsychotic medications. We investigated if CYP2D6 genetic variation influenced weight or BMI among people taking antipsychotic treatment.MethodsWe conducted a systematic review and a random effects meta-analysis of publications in Pubmed, Embase, PsychInfo, and CENTRAAL that had BMI and/or weight measurements of patients on long-term antipsychotics by their CYP2D6-defined metabolic groups.ResultsTwelve (...) studies were included in the systematic review. All cohort studies suggested that the presence of reduced-function or non-functional alleles for CYP2D6 was associated with greater antipsychotic-induced weight gain, whereas most cross-sectional studies did not find any significant associations. Seventeen studies were included in the meta-analysis with clinical data of 2,041 patients, including 93 poor metabolizers, 633 intermediate metabolizers, 1,272 normal metabolizers, and 30 UMs. Overall, we did not find associations in any of the comparisons made. The estimated pooled standardized differences for the following comparisons were PM versus NM; weight = –0.07, BMI = 0.40. IM versus NM; weight = 0.09 and BMI = 0.09. UM versus EM; weight = 0.01 and BMI = –0.08.ConclusionOur systematic review of cohort studies suggested that CYP2D6 poor metabolizers have higher BMI than normal metabolizers, but the data of cross-sectional studies and the meta-analysis did not show this association. Although our review and meta-analysis constitutes one of the largest studies with comprehensively genotyped samples, the literature is still limited by small numbers of participants with genetic variants resulting in poor or UMs status. We need further studies with larger numbers of extreme metabolizers to establish its clinical utility in antipsychotic treatment. CYP2D6 is a key gene for personalized prescribing in mental health. (shrink)

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to describe the implementation and outcomes of an Eye Movement and Desensitization Reprocessing treatment-program for women with posttraumatic stress disorder after childbirth.MethodsA prospective cohort-study with pre- and post-measurements was carried out in the setting of an academic hospital in the Netherland. Included were women who gave birth to a living child at least 4 weeks ago, with a diagnosis of PTSD, or severe symptoms of PTSD combined with another psychiatric diagnosis. All received up to (...) 8 sessions of EMDR-therapy. The posttraumatic stress disorder Checklist for DSM-5 was administered before and after treatment. Trauma history was assessed before treatment with the Life Events Checklist for the DSM-5, the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and the Childbirth Perception Scale. Descriptive statistics were used.ResultsForty-four women were referred, 26 met the inclusion criteria. After treatment, none of the women met the criteria for diagnosis of PTSD after on average 5 weekly sessions of EMDR- therapy. These outcomes are promising, as they were achieved in women with relatively high levels of psychiatric comorbidity and high rates of previous mental health treatment.ConclusionImplementing an EMDR-treatment program for women with PTSD after childbirth in the setting of an academic hospital is feasible and effective. Key factors for success include a close collaboration between the relevant hospital departments and a thorough case conceptualization addressing the etiology of the PTSD. (shrink)

The role of membrane receptors is regarded as being to transduce the signal represented by ligand binding from the external cell surface across the membrane into the cell. Signals are subsequently conveyed from the cytoplasm to the nucleus through a combination of second-messenger molecules, kinase/phosphorylation cascades, and transcription factor (TF) translocation to effect changes in gene expression. Mounting evidence suggests that through direct targeting to the nucleus, polypeptide ligands and their receptors may have an important additional signaling role. Ligands such (...) as those of the platelet-derived and fibroblast growth factor classes, as well as cytokines such as interferon-γ and interleukins-1 and -5, have been found to localize in the nucleus through the action of nuclear localization sequences (NLSs). Where tested, these NLSs appear to be essential for full signaling activity and may be responsible for cotranslocating receptors to the nucleus in complexes with their ligands. The implication is that, subsequent to endocytosis at the membrane, particular polypeptide ligands or their receptors, or both, may translocate to the nucleus to participate directly in gene regulation. BioEssays 20:400–411, 1998.© 1998 John Wiley & Sons Inc. (shrink)

Background Genuine uncertainty on superiority of one intervention over the other is called equipoise. Physician-investigators in randomized controlled trials need equipoise at least in studies with more than minimal risks. Ideally, this equipoise is also present in patient-participants. In pediatrics, data on equipoise are lacking. We hypothesize that 1) lack of equipoise at enrolment among parents may reduce recruitment; 2) lack of equipoise during participation may reduce retention in patients assigned to a less favoured treatment-strategy. Methods We compared preferences of (...) parents/patients at enrolment, documented by a questionnaire, with preferences developed during follow-up by an interview-study to investigate equipoise of child-participants and parents in the BeSt-for-Kids-study. This trial in new-onset Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis-patients consists of three strategies. One strategy comprises initial treatment with a biological disease-modifying-antirheumatic-drug, currently not standard-of-care. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 23 parents and 7 patients, median 11 months after enrolment. Results Initially most parents and children were not in equipoise. Parents/patients who refused participation, regularly declined due to specific preferences. Many participating families preferred the biological-first-strategy. They participated to have a chance for this initial treatment, and would even consider stopping trial-participation when not randomized for it. Their conviction of superiority of the biological-first strategy was based on knowledge from internet and close relations. According to four parents, the physician-investigator preferred the biological-first-strategy, but the majority stated that she had no preferred strategy. In phase 2, preferences tended to change to the treatment actually received. Conclusions Lack of equipoise during enrolment did not reduce study recruitment, mainly due to the fact that preferred treatment was only available within the study. Still, when developing a trial it is important to evaluate whether the physicians’ research question is in line with preferences of the patient-group. By exploring so-called ‘informed patient-group’-equipoise, successful recruitment may be enhanced and bias avoided. In our study, lack of equipoise during trial-participation did not reduce retention in those assigned to a less favoured option. We observed a change for preference towards treatment actually received, possibly explained by comparable outcomes in all three arms. (shrink)

This article introduces a new hybrid intake procedure developed for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) screening, which combines an automated textual assessment of respondents’ self-narratives and item-based measures that are administered consequently. Text mining technique and item response modeling were used to analyze long constructed response (i.e., self-narratives) and responses to standardized questionnaires (i.e., multiple choices), respectively. The whole procedure is combined in a Bayesian framework where the textual assessment functions as prior information for the estimation of the PTSD latent trait. (...) The purpose of this study is twofold: first, to investigate whether the combination model of textual analysis and item-based scaling could enhance the classification accuracy of PTSD, and second, to examine whether the standard error of estimates could be reduced through the use of the narrative as a sort of routing test. With the sample at hand, the combination model resulted in a reduction in the misclassification rate, as well as a decrease of standard error of latent trait estimation. These findings highlight the benefits of combining textual assessment and item-based measures in a psychiatric screening process. We conclude that the hybrid test design is a promising approach to increase test efficiency and is expected to be applicable in a broader scope of educational and psychological measurement in the future. (shrink)

The South African government’s COVID-19 pandemic risk mitigation strategies significantly limited social contact, which necessitated a novel approach to existing face-to-face career guidance practices. The Grade 9 Career Guidance Project, originally developed as a group-based career development intervention, required radical adaptation into a self-directed, manualized format to offer career guidance to Grade 9 learners from low-income communities amid a global pandemic. The adaptation and continuation of the project was deemed essential as secondary school learners in low-income communities have limited career (...) guidance support. Furthermore, a close collaboration with the teachers at eight resource-constrained South African secondary schools was vital for successful implementation. To assess the success of the adaptation to a self-directed format, a mixed-methods design was employed, and Life Orientation teachers’ evaluative feedback was solicited. Favorable quantitative results were obtained; majority of teachers agreed that learners enjoyed the booklet and that it was deemed an adequate substitute to the previous contact-based format of the Career Guidance Project. This was also confirmed by the qualitative findings revealing teachers’ satisfaction with the booklet’s content, specifically that the booklet is complementary to the Life Orientation curriculum. Qualitative findings identified specific contextual barriers that contributed to some learners struggling to use the booklet optimally. The results suggest that it is feasible and acceptable to implement a self-directed career guidance intervention among secondary school learners amid a global pandemic. Teachers recommended ways to integrate the booklet, resources, and contact sessions as a preferred way forward. These findings have important implications for similar resource-constrained settings that may not have readily access to in-person career guidance and counseling human development. (shrink)

Biographical note: Sascha Bru, Genth University, Belgium; Peter Nicholls, University of Sussex, UK.

Artificial intelligence is rapidly entering our daily lives in the form of driverless cars, automated online assistants and virtual reality experiences. In so doing, AI has already substituted human employment in areas that were previously thought to be uncomputerizable. Based on current trends, the technological displacement of labor is predicted to be significant in the future – if left unchecked this will lead to catastrophic societal unemployment levels. This paper presents a means to mitigate future technological unemployment through the introduction (...) of a Basic Income scheme, accompanied by reforms in school curricula and retraining programs. Our proposal argues that such a scheme can be funded by a special tax on those industries that make use of robotic labour; it includes a practical roadmap that would see a government take this proposal from the conceptual phase and implement it nationwide in the span of one decade. (shrink)

Telling the story of three overlooked revolutionary thinkers, Liberty in Their Names explores the lives and works of Olympe de Gouges, Sophie de Grouchy and Manon Roland. All three were thinking and writing about political philosophy, especially equality and social justice, before the French Revolution. As they became engaged in its efforts, their political writing became more urgent. At a time when women could neither vote nor speak at the Assembly, they became influential through their writings. Yet instead of Gouges, (...) Grouchy and Roland, we speak of Voltaire, Rousseau and Diderot. -/- Sandrine Bergès examines the lives and writings of these trailblazing women philosophers, and their impact on philosophical thought during the French Revolution. Featuring pictures, a timeline and a bibliography of their works, this book offers exciting new insights into the history of political philosophy and of the French Revolution. (shrink)

Methodological Individualism and Rational Choice Theory (broadly understood) can integrate various research programmes in cognitive sociology (itself broadly understood). This article sets out two different but closely related conceptions, depending on the focus of the analysis (macro-sociological or micro-sociological) and the goals, although both deal — to some extent — with the bridge between these levels. Raymond Boudon's programme is relevant when the focus is the macro-sociological level but can be considered as weakly `cognitive'. Alban Bouvier presents a slightly (...) stronger cognitive programme — the argumentativist programme — that makes sense when the focus is on the micro-sociological level. This new programme leads to integrating cognitive psychology and recent argumentation theory more and, as well, the philosophy of mind and social philosophy. Examples here are borrowed from historical sociology. (shrink)

In his Politics, Aristotle decreed that human beings needed to take part in politics to flourish, but that women, despite being human, needed to stay at home and away from politics. This paper offers an overview of how early modern women philosophers worked to makes their lives more political despite being constricted to the domestic sphere. Lucrezia Marinella argued that the home was like a small city, requiring quasi political skill to run, Cavendish believed that politics should cover the home (...) and its inhabitants, not just the so-called ‘public domain’. Mary Astell, less optimistic, thought that women could compensate for the urge to be political by retreating into a well-educated mind. (shrink)

Human emotions guide verbal and non-verbal behaviour during social encounters. During public performances, performers’ emotions can be affected directly by an audience’s attitude. The valence of the emotional state (positive or negative) of a broad range of animal species is known to be associated with a body and visual orientation laterality bias. Here, we evaluated the influence of an audience’s attitude on professional actors’ head orientation and gaze direction during two theatrical performances with controlled observers’ reactions (Hostile vs Friendly audience). (...) First, our speech fluency analysis confirmed that an audience’s attitude influenced actors’ emotions. Second, we found that, whereas actors oriented more their head to the left (i.e. Right Hemisphere Bias) when the audience was hostile, they gazed more straight ahead at Friendly spectators. These results are in accordance with the Valence-Specific Hypothesis that proposes that processing stimuli with negative valences involves the right hemisphere (i.e. left eye) more than the left hemisphere. (shrink)

In The Slow Professor, Maggie Berg and Barbara K. Seeber discuss how adopting the principles of the Slow movement in academic life can counter the erosion of humanistic education.