Listening to the SirensMusical Technologies of Queer Identity from Homer to Hedwig

Abstract

This book investigates how music has been used throughout history to call into question norms of gender and sexuality. Beginning with a close examination of the mythology surrounding the sirens—whose music seduced Ulysses into a state of mind in which he would gladly sacrifice everything for the illicit pleasures promised in their song —it goes on to consider the musical creatures, musical gods and demigods, musical humans, and music-addled listeners who have been associated with behavior that breaches social conventions. The author employs a reading of Foucault as an organizational principle as well as a philosophical focus to survey seductive and transgressive queerness in music from the Greeks through the Middle Ages and to the contemporary period. The book analyzes the musical ways in which queer individuals express and discipline their desire, represent themselves, build communities, and subvert heterosexual expectations. It covers a wide range of music including medieval songs; works by Handel, Tchaikovsky, and Britten; women's music and disco; performers such as Judy Garland, Melissa Etheridge, Madonna, and Marilyn Manson; and the movies The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

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