Theorising with Art and Music

Theorising with Art and Music: a joint event from the BSA Sociology of the Arts and Theory Study Groups was held online on 21 June 2023.
It has been over two decades since calls were issued to bring ‘meaning’ back into the sociology of art. How have those calls been heeded, and how ‘meaningful’ is the field now?
This online seminar brought together contributors to The Cultural Sociology of Art and Music: New Directions and New Discoveries (2022), edited by Lisa McCormick and published by Palgrave. The book showcases how advances in combining the sociology of art with cultural sociology are contributing to new understandings of artistic phenomena-from art market scandals to the migratory paths of artists. In this seminar, contributors will situate their chapters within the broader theoretical developments that the book represents. Echoing McCormick in the book’s introduction, the aim of the seminar was not to “reissue the call to take meaning more seriously [… but to] get on with the job” (p. 13).
Speakers included: Fiona Greenland, Laura Harris, Lisa McCormick, Alexander C. Sutton and Dominik Zelinsky