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Going Viral: Music and Emotions during Pandemics (1679-1919)

Project description

The role of music in the emotional experiences of pandemics

During the Covid-19 pandemic music served as one of the most important means to emotionally deal with its implications. Further advancing the understanding of the emotional significance of music in pandemics throughout history will enable an interdisciplinary discourse with the social and natural sciences. GOING VIRAL will be the first study to develop an innovative conceptualisation and methodology for studying music and emotions across history. Moreover, it will produce innovative historical knowledge about music's emotional dimensions in three major pandemics in Vienna (Plague, Cholera and Spanish Flu), highlighting both differences and continuities, and providing a foundation for comparative studies on music, emotions and pandemics across a wide range of disciplines.

Objective

"Within day of Covid-19 reaching Europe in early 2020, music had emerged as one of the most prominent media for emotional engagement with the effects of lockdown, sickness and grief. Its remarkable primacy for expressing, navigating and shaping emotional pandemic experiences was quickly picked up by researchers and journalists who showed an immediate interest in finding evidence both for the role of music in past pandemics and for continuities across time. It quickly transpired, though, that they lacked established categories, shared methodologies and sufficient historical knowledge to describe and to compare the phenomenon adequately.
The study of music in pandemics, and especially of its emotional significance, is both underdeveloped and urgently needed - and has the potential to constitute a major new field of research on music, emotions and pandemics alike.

GOING VIRAL will be the first study to provide a comparative history of the imbrication of music in the emotional experiences of pandemics.

Its major research aims are
- to develop an innovative conceptualisation and methodology for studying music and emotions across history, building on the equally well-regarded approaches ""musicking as social practice"" and ""emotions as embodied practices"";
- to generate ground-breaking historical knowledge about music's emotional dimensions in three major pandemics - the Plague, Cholera and Spanish Flu - in Vienna beginning in the 17th century, highlighting both difference and continuity;
- to provide a solid conceptual, methodological and historical foundation for comparative studies on music, emotions and pandemics across a vast range of disciplines.

GOING VIRAL's results will not only be applicable in related historical settings but also enable a meaningful interdisciplinary discourse with the social and natural sciences about music end emotions in pandemics, including Covid-19.
"

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) ERC-2021-STG

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Host institution

UNIVERSITAT FUR MUSIK UND DARSTELLENDE KUNST WIEN
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 499 379,00
Address
ANTON VON WEBERN PLATZ 1
1030 Wien
Austria

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Region
Ostösterreich Wien Wien
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 499 379,00

Beneficiaries (1)

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