Beyond Lacoue-Labarthe’s Alma Mater : mus(e)ic, myth and modernity

Hickmott, Sarah

Abstract

Addressing the role of music in Lacoue-Labarthe’s thinking, this article identifies a tension between his commitment to a nostalgic narrative that insists on the maternal/uterine origins of music’s emotional essence and his critique of the way that music, in its distinctly modern construction, is figured in relation to a nostalgic attempt to recoup the emotive power attributed to the mythological ancient model it assumes as its (illusory/absent) origin. Though this article highlights a problematic repetition of the mythologizing of music’s maternal origins, by drawing on Lacoue-Labarthe’s own critical understanding of musical modernity it also poses the possibility of moving beyond characterizing music and the maternal-feminine as timeless givens that precede our categories of analysis.

Citation

Hickmott, S. (2017). Beyond Lacoue-Labarthe’s Alma Mater : mus(e)ic, myth and modernity. Esprit Créateur, 57(4), 174-188. https://doi.org/10.1353/esp.2017.0047

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Online Publication Date: Jan 19, 2018
• Publication Date: 2017
• Deposit Date: Mar 15, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 7, 2021
• Journal: Esprit Créateur
• Print ISSN: 0014-0767
• Electronic ISSN: 1931-0234
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 57
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 174-188
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/esp.2017.0047