Professor Tia DeNora
Research Interests
My first book, Beethoven and the Construction of Genius (University of California Press 1995, French edition, Fayard 1998, Korean edition 2009), dealt with Beethoven's meteoric rise to fame during the last decade of the 18th century. I've always been interested in the basic sociological problem of how value is recognized and how distinctions between people are made. By studying Beethoven's reputation as it was initially forged, and as controversy about his work was neutralized and dispelled, I was trying to provide a case-in-point for the sociology of identity and for (aesthetic) hierarchy in-the-making.
My second book, Music and Everyday Life (Cambridge 2000) described results from an ESRC-supported study of music in daily life, drawing on studies of music therapy, music in the retail sector, music and exercise and in-depth interviews on how people use music in the course of their daily lives - to relax, get energised, remember, construct identity and to set the stylistic parameters of social occasions.
(See the ACT Review Symposium with commentary from Wayne Bowman, Hildegard Froelich, Daniel Cavicci, John Shepherd.)
My third book, After Adorno: Rethinking Music Sociology (Cambridge University Press 2003, Korean edition forthcoming) develops a grounded programme for exploring the question of music's role as an active medium in social life. This programme develops the concept of affordance and sets music's powers in context of actual musical events so as to explore the ways in which past practices, conventions, materials and actions interact in ways that are consequential for action, memory, emotion and representation. (After Adorno recently received an honorable mention in the ASA's 2005 Culture Section Book Prize.)
A fourth book of essays was published in the Ashgate series Contemporary Thinkers on Critical Musicology in February 2011, Music-in-Action: Selected Essays in Sonic Ecology.
I am currently working on four longer-term projects. The first of these considers interaction between music and science in Beethoven's Vienna and beyond. The second, in collaboration with music therapists considers issues of evaluation and evidence in music therapeutic interventions and practices, with a focus on user-perspectives. It is linked to a third project, recently completed, in collaboration with Gary Ansdell at the Nordoff Robbins Centre for Music Therapy, where I have been involved in a longitudinal project on community music making and mental health. As part of the preparation for this work, I have been been conducting an autoethnographic study of (re)learning to play an instrument, in my case, the baroque recorder. This work has allowed me to think in a personal way about the experience of gaining musical skill and the associated psycho-social benefits for mental well-being. The fourth, and most recent, focuses on music and end-of-life.
While most of my work has revolved around musical themes, I also maintain a research interest in the sociology of science and technology. In 1991-2, I directed an ESRC-funded study of knowledge-based controversy in the history of Fertility Awareness contraception (see 'From Physiology to Feminism' which won the 'worldwide prize for young sociologists' in the summer 1996 issue of International Sociology).
Research Supervision
Sociology of Music, Music Sociology, Arts Sociology
I supervise work in the area of arts sociology and am especially interested in working with PhD students on musical topics, broadly conceived. This may include anything from studies of music consumption, distribution, production, to studies of creativity, to historically-based studies of music and social change. I am also very interested in music's music's dynamic role in relation to emotional experience and bodily processes and music's practical applicaitons in domestic, organizational/corporate, healthcare and political settings. I am also interested in working with PhD students on the sonic features of social interaction and environment. For information on current PhD work that I supervise, please see the webpages designed and maintained by the students themselves:
For information about doing a PhD please contact me at:
tdenora (at) exeter.ac.uk
Research Students
Recent PhDs (listing first supervisees only):
Dana Wilson-Kovacs. Thesis: Sexual Intimacy as Aesthetic Practice: An ethnographic investigation of women, pleasure and everyday life (Degree Awarded, 2005, now working as a Research Fellow and Lecturer in our Department)
Kari Batt-Rawden. Thesis: Everyday musical activity and health promotion (Degree Awarded, 2007, now working as a Full Time Researcher, East Norwegian Research Institute)
Sophia Krzys Acord (USA). Topic: Artistic Gatekeeping, Tacit Knowledge and Taste (Degree Awarded, 2009) Honorable Mention in the American Sociological Association's Annual Dissertation Award 2010 now Assistant Professor, Sociology, University of Florida
Arild Bergh (Norway/UK). Topic: Music and Conflict Transformation (Degree Awarded, 2010, Software Consultant and Part-time Lecturer/Researcher)
Ian Sutherland (Canada). Topic: Composers' strategies in Nazi Germany (Degree Awarded, 2010, Director of Postgraduate Studies, Bled Business School)
Current PhD students in the areas of sociology of arts and music sociology are:
Rita Gracia Alberto (Portugal, FCT). Topic: Portuguese Women Rockers - identity, networks and the care of self
Elizabeth Dennis (UK). Topic: Action Research on Music and Dementia
Sigrun Lilja Einarsdottir (Iceland). Topic: Amateur Bach Choirs: the concept of 'choral capital' (Assistant Professor, Bifröst University, Sociology)
Pinar Guran (Turkey). Topic: Music and cultural memory in Diaspora: the Kreuzberg experience
Trever Hagen (USA). Topic: Music in the Prague Underground, 1968-1989
Mariko Hara (Japan). Topic: Music, Well-being and the Elderly - the case of Singing for the Brain
Sapfo Pantzaki (Greece). Multi-media arts education for children.
Simon Procter (UK). Topic: Music Therapy and the politics of its provision (Working Full Time as Director of Taught Programmes, Nordoff Robbins Centre for Music Therapy and former Editor of British Journal of Music Therapy)
Craig Robertson (UK). Topic: Music and Conflict Resolution in Song-writing workshops (Currently also working as a Research Fellow, University of York)
Pedro dos Santos Boia (Portugal, FCT). Topic: The social identity of the Viola and Violists, 1780 to the present
For more information please see:
http://www.projects.ex.ac.uk/socarts
And for the on-line journal, founded and edited by some of these students, see:
