Resounding Transcendence

"Centered around the concepts of transitions and transcendence in human experience, the essays Engelhardt and Bohlman have gathered are eclectic. In their introduction, the editors suggest that the current conception of music and religion is shaped by the legacy of colonialism. Transcendence, they argue, acknowledges the symbolic character of music. Covering developments in religious and musical traditions in various parts of the world--South and Southeast Asia, Taiwan, Tunisia, Trinidad, the US, and Europe--the volume covers music both performed and received. Religious traditions examined include Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, and Judaism. The contributors approach their topics from their subjects' lived experience--understanding gathered both from fieldwork and from study of the literature--examining all under the overarching theme of transcendence. Students of comparative religion, ethnomusicology, and postcolonial studies will find much to ponder in this collection"--Choice "This wide-ranging and significant collection welcomes within its pages a diversity of material that both opens up new interdisciplinary perspectives and, at moments, skirts on the edges of coherence. Oxford University Press describes the volume as 'theoretically ambitious', and the introduction by the two co-editors certainly lives up to this depiction. Indeed, such a wide range of themes is included within this introductory section that it can take a little time to figure out which of these truly guide the collection as a whole. Within the space of twenty-five pages, the editors cover such themes as sacred metaphysics, sounding and resonance, histories and processes of transcendence, immanence and secularity, voice, ritual transition, postcolonialism, postsecularity, conversion, healing, soteriology, indigenization, inculturation, and globalization, among others"--Music and Letters