Radical Musicology
Radical Musicology is a peer-reviewed online journal produced in the International Centre for Music Studies at Newcastle University (UK). It was established to provide a forum for progressive thinking across the whole field of musical studies, and encourages work that draws on any and all relevant disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives.
Sounds good, but will it actually manage to keep up to this goal? After browsing through the articles in the first volume, it does not appear particularly “radical”, but rather following along the tradition of new musicology. While new musicology was radical at some point, it seems to have become mainstream many places nowadays. To me, a radical approach to musicology today should open for a much more interdisciplinary approach, including psychology, neuroscience, technology, etc. As such, I find the growing field of embodied music cognition to be today’s radical musicology.