Musicology of Religion: Theories, Methods, and Directions by Guy L. Beck (review)

Reviewed by: Musicology of Religion: Theories, Methods, and Directions by Guy L. Beck Martin V. Clarke Musicology of Religion: Theories, Methods, and Directions. By Guy L. Beck. (SUNY Series in Religious Studies. ) Albany: State University of New York Press, 2023. ix, 358 p. ISBN 9781438493114 (hardcover), 99; ISBN 9781438493107 (paperback), 36. 95; ISBN 9781438493091 (ebook), price varies. Bibliography, index. End Page 700 Defining a new academic field requires considerable boldness. Guy L. Beck's attempt to define the musicology of religion demonstrates this in three interrelated ways. First, he details a vast array of disciplinary methods and perspectives that he considers contributory to the new discipline; second, he interprets a range of earlier scholarly publications by noted researchers on music and religion as precursors of the new discipline; third, he makes broad generalized criticisms of the social-scientific methods, perspectives, and assumptions of several scholarly disciplines that engage with religion and music. He draws these three facets together to assert that the musicology of religion is both necessary and inevitable. Musicology of Religion is both polemical and methodical. Beck maintains an unerring focus on the case for regarding religious and musical impulses as human universals, and thus the necessity of studying their interdependencies. At the same time, he surveys and summarizes an astonishingly wide range of scholarly literature in documenting the academic contexts in which the study of music and religion has and has not flourished, and which offer potential for further study. He divides the volume into three parts: "Theories and Methods, " "New Directions and Paradigms, " and "Homo Religiosus and Homo Musicus. " The distinction between the first two parts is not especially clear: all seven chapters within them have titles hinging on the conjunction and, six of them pairing another academic field (respectively, religious studies, social sciences, philosophy, theology, liturgical studies, and cognitive studies) with music, while in chapter 3, Beck explores musicology and ethnomusicology. By contrast, the sole chapter in part 3 replicates the book's title. In the first seven chapters, Beck offers extended critical literature reviews and brief reflections on how the discipline concerned has or could contribute to the study of music and religion. Beck begins with the premise that music has historically been largely absent from the study of religion and vice versa, while noting the obvious contrast with popular perceptions of their interrelatedness. He sets out what he sees as the challenges that have prevented such integrated study from flourishing. Highlighting critiques of religious studies that characterize it variously as a scholarly, human, or imperialist construction, he argues that the discipline, through its lack of engagement with music and chant, has placed itself in a vulnerable position, which can be "remedied through meretricious work in the Musicology of Religion" (p. 25; Beck capitalizes the name of the discipline throughout the book). Beck positions himself among those who argue that religious studies needs to return to investigation of universal aspects of religious or spiritual practice, including music. He appeals to the idea of music as a universal, rather than the "musics" of ethnomusicology, which he describes as "musical relativism" (p. 28). In the opening chapter, "Religious Studies and Music, " Beck establishes his emphasis on the case for regarding religion and music as universals, and thus for the scholarly importance of comparative studies. He argues for the value of both the "Window Theory" and "Mirror Theory" of religion (p. 47), seeing them as complementary rather than in competition. Drawing on ancient Roman ideas about religion and the romantic emphasis on religious experience and the supernatural, he identifies Friedrich Schleiermacher as centrally important to the musicology of religion on account of his refusal to view knowing and doing as dialectically opposed, and for his emphasis on feeling, or religious experience. Beck puts forward phenomenology as valuable to the study of both religion and music, End Page 701 on the basis that it offers a nonjudg-mental approach while acknowledging the reality of experiences for believers and participants. In chapter 2, "Social Sciences and Music, " Beck sets out limitations of cultural relativism, which he sees as leading to the separation of culture and biology, or nurture and nature, in scholarly study. In place of the approach of. . .