Wolfram R. Keller

Cornelia Wilde

Perfect Harmony and Melting Strains assembles interdisciplinary essays investigating concepts of harmony during a transitional period, in which the Pythagorean notion of a harmoniously ordered cosmos competed with and was transformed by new theories about sound - and new ways of conceptualizing the world. From the perspectives of philosophy, literary scholarship, and musicology, the contributions consider music's ambivalent position between mathematical abstraction and sensibility, between the metaphysics of harmony and the physics of sound. Essays examine the late medieval and early modern history of ideas concerning the nature of music and cosmic harmony, and trace their transformations in early modern musico-literary discourses. Within this framework, essays further offer original readings of important philosophical, literary, and musicological works. This interdisciplinary volume brings into focus the transformation of a predominant Renaissance worldview and of music's scientific, theological, literary, as well as cultural conceptions and functions in the early modern period, and will be of interest to scholars of the classics, philosophy, musicology, as well as literary and cultural studies.

Transformations of Music in Early Modern Culture between Sensibility and Abstraction

Perfect Harmony and Melting Strains

Marcus Callies

Astrid Lohöfer

Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary study of the human mind. As far as the exact relationship between the cognitive sciences and other fields is concerned, however, it appears that interdisciplinary exchange often remains unrealized, possibly because of the uni-directional application of theories, concepts, and methods, which impedes the productive transfer of knowledge in both directions. In the course of the cognitive turn in the humanities and social sciences, many disciplines have selectively borrowed ideas from core cognitive sciences like psychology and artificial intelligence. The day-to-day practice of interdisciplinarity thus thrives on one-directional borrowings. Focusing on cognitive approaches in linguistics and literary studies, this volume explores "bi-directionality," a genuine transdisciplinary interchange in which both disciplines are borrowing and lending. The contributions take different perspectives on bi-directionality: some extend uni-directional borrowing practices and point to avenues and crossroads, while others critically discuss obstacles, challenges, and limitations to bi-directional transfer."

Wolfram R. Keller

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