'...discusses virtually all the musical writings which figure in this tome of the Oeuvres completes and may even be read as a companion volume, providing a key to the understanding of its various texts...O'Dea's vividly textured and finely nuanced reading of Rousseau's musical imagination plainly does complement the Pleiade collection in two striking ways...it offers a general interpretation of the place of the philosophy of music in Rousseau's thought that is addressed to concepts which flit in and out of particular works, articulated in a voice whose clarity of tone is unmatched by a chorus of editors. Second, it pursues its case across a range of texts spread far beyond the limits of any collection of Rousseau's essays on music.' - Robert Wokler, French Literature This new study of Jean-Jacques Rousseau suggests that his early articles on music for the Encyclopidie give a unique insight into his thinking on aesthetics, affectivity and desire. Rousseau is shown as moving subsequently between two opposed tendencies. He celebrates the voice as the vehicle for the most intense moments of human experience but also frequently attacks the surrender to passion implicit in that celebration, denouncing the arts and arguing that women must be confined to the domestic sphere.

'...discusses virtually all the musical writings which figure in this tome of the Oeuvres completes and may even be read as a companion volume, providing a key to the understanding of its various texts...O'Dea's vividly textured and finely nuanced reading of Rousseau's musical imagination plainly does complement the Pleiade collection in two striking ways...it offers a general interpretation of the place of the philosophy of music in Rousseau's thought that is addressed to concepts which flit in and out of particular works, articulated in a voice whose clarity of tone is unmatched by a chorus of editors. Second, it pursues its case across a range of texts spread far beyond the limits of any collection of Rousseau's essays on music.' - Robert Wokler, French Literature

Judith Perraino investigates how music has been used throughout history to call into question norms of gender and sexuality. Beginning with an examination of the mythology surrounding the Sirens, she goes on to consider musical creatures, gods, humans and music-addled listeners.

Bringing together critical assessments of the broad range of Rousseau's thought, with a particular emphasis on his political theory, this systematic collection is an essential resource for both student and scholar.

This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. This exciting new text presents the first overview of Jean Jacques Rousseau's work from a political science perspective. Was Rousseau--the great theorist of the French Revolution--really a conservative? This original study argues that the he was a constitutionalist much closer to Madison, Montesquieu, and Locke than to revolutionaries. Outlining his profound opposition to Godless materialism and revolutionary change, this book finds parallels between Rousseau and Burke, as well as showing how Rousseau developed the first modern theory of nationalism. The book presents an integrated political analysis of Rousseau's educational, ethical, religious and political writings, and will be essential reading for students of politics, philosophy and the history of ideas.

Reconstructs the life of the French literary genius whose writing changed opinions and fueled fierce debate on both sides of the Atlantic during the period of the American and French revolutions.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau the writer-philosopher was a practicing musician and theorist for years before publication of his first Discourse, but scholars have neglected these fertile, inexhaustible ideas because they were either unavailable in a critical edition or viewed as standing outside the aegis of his system of thought. This graceful translation remedies both those failings by bringing together the Essay with a comprehensive selection of the musical writings. Many of the latter are responses to authors like Rameau, Grimm, and Raynal, and a unique feature of this edition is the inclusion of writings by these authors to help establish the historical and ideological context of Rousseau's writings and the intellectual exchanges of which they are a part.

When the story of modernity is told from a theological perspective, music is routinely ignored—despite its pervasiveness in modern culture and the manifold ways it has been intertwined with modernity's ambivalent relation to the Christian God. In conversation with musicologists and music theorists, this collection of essays shows that the practices of music and the discourses it has generated bear their own kind of witness to some of the pivotal theological currents and counter-currents shaping modernity. Music has been deeply affected by these currents and in some cases may have played a part in generating them. In addition, Jeremy Begbie argues that music is capable of yielding highly effective ways of addressing and moving beyond some of the more intractable theological problems and dilemmas which modernity has bequeathed to us. Music, Modernity, and God includes studies of Calvin, Luther, and Bach, an exposition of the intriguing tussle between Rousseau and the composer Rameau, and an account of the heady exaltation of music to be found in the early German Romantics. Particular attention is paid to the complex relations between music and language, and the ways in which theology, a discipline involving language at its heart, can come to terms with practices like music, practices which are coherent and meaningful but which in many respects do not operate in language-like ways.

Bringing together critical assessments of the broad range of Rousseau's thought, with a particular emphasis on his political theory, this systematic collection is an essential resource for both student and scholar.

Renowned for his influence as a political philosopher, a writer, and an autobiographer, Jean-Jacques Rousseau is known also for his lifelong interest in music. He composed operas and other musical pieces, invented a system of numbered musical notation, engaged in public debates about music, and wrote at length about musical theory. Critical analysis of Rousseau’s work in music has been principally the domain of musicologists, rarely involving the work of scholars of political theory or literary studies. In Rousseau Among the Moderns, Julia Simon puts forth fresh interpretations of The Social Contract, the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, and the Confessions, as well as other texts. She links Rousseau’s understanding of key concepts in music, such as tuning, harmony, melody, and form, to the crucial problem of the individual’s relationship to the social order. The choice of music as the privileged aesthetic object enables Rousseau to gain insight into the role of the aesthetic realm in relation to the social and political body in ways often associated with later thinkers. Simon argues that much of Rousseau’s “modernism” resides in the unique role that he assigns to music in forging communal relations.