Researching and writing about contemporary art and artists present unique challenges for scholars, students, professional critics and creative practitioners alike. This collection of essays from across the arts disciplines—music, literature, dance, theatre and the visual arts—explores the challenges and complexities raised by engaging in researching and writing on living or recently deceased subjects and their output. Different sections explore critical perspectives and case studies in relation to innovative, distinctive or otherwise leading work, as well as offering innovative modes of discourse such as a visual essay and a music composition. Subjects addressed include recent scandals of Canadian literary celebrity, late-career output, the written element of music composition PhDs, and the boundaries between ethnography and hagiography, with case studies ranging from Howard Barker to Adrian Piper to Sylvie Guillem and Misty Copeland.
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Part I General Introduction |
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1 Researching and Writing on Contemporary Art and Artists |
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3 | (16) |
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Part II Critical Perspectives |
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2 The Artist Is Present: Scandal and the Academic Study of the Living Artist |
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19 | (20) |
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3 From Vocational Calling to Career Construction: Late-Career Authors and Critical Self-reflection |
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39 | (26) |
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4 The Purpose of the Written Element in Composition PhDs |
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65 | (26) |
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5 Ethnographic Approaches to the Study of Western Art Music: Questions of Context, Realism, Evidence, Description and Analysis |
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91 | (32) |
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6 When Ethnography Becomes Hagiography: Uncritical Musical Perspectives |
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123 | (28) |
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Part III Case Studies Across the Arts |
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7 Writing Catastrophe: Howard Barker's Theatre |
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151 | (22) |
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8 Writing the Contemporary Ballerina: Sylvie Guillem, Misty Copeland and Lessons in Biography |
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173 | (18) |
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9 Amend the Arena: On Adrian Piper's Work |
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191 | (14) |
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10 Writing About Contemporary Composers: Memory and Irony in The Apollonian Clockwork |
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205 | (18) |
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11 Artfrom: Researching the Canon Through Publications of Art and Design |
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223 | (18) |
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Part IV Art Considered on Its Own Terms |
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241 | (8) |
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249 | (10) |
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14 MusicArt: Creating Dialogues Across the Arts |
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259 | (18) |
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| Index |
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277 | |
Christopher Wiley is Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Surrey, UK. He is the author of many journal articles and book chapters, and the co-editor of forthcoming volumes including Writing About Contemporary Musicians (2020), Transnational Perspectives on Artists Lives (2020), Womens Suffrage in Word, Image, Music and Drama (2021), and The Routledge Companion to Autoethnography and Self-Reflexivity in Music Studies (2021).
Ian Pace is Senior Lecturer in Music at City, University of London, UK, and an internationally renowned pianist specialising in new music. He published a monograph on Michael Finnissys The History of Photography in Sound (2013) alongside a recording of the work, and he is co-editor of the volumes Uncommon Ground: The Music of Michael Finnissy (1988), Critical Perspectives on Michael Finnissy (2019), Writing about Contemporary Musicians (2020), and RethinkingContemporary Musicology (2020). He has also published articles in many journals, recorded 40 CDs, and given over 250 world premieres.
