GOING VIRAL

This blog is designed to be the online platform for the ERC Starting Grant Project “Going Viral. Music and Emotions during Pandemics (1679-1919)” (PI Prof. Dr. Marie Louise Herzfeld-Schild). The project will start 1 September 2022 and will go on for 5 years. The host institution is the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (mdw).

The purpose of this blog is to share the project’s research findings, inform about events, publications, talks and other dissemination. It will also contain book reviews and short opinion pieces that are linked to the topic of the project. It targets both academic and public audiences who are interested in the historical interrelation between music, emotions and pandemics; the historiography of music and emotions and how to approach it conceptually, theoretically and methodologically. The project examines music, emotions and pandemics from a wide range of disciplines, including not only the humanities but also the social and natural sciences. Thus, this blog aims to attract an equally widely interested audience and hopes to provide deeper discussions and insights into questions that many of us have asked ourselves in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic that has shaped our lives for much too long. To narrow them down to just two: What role can music have in the emotional landscape of a pandemic, and has this always been the same?

The content of this blog is, however, not limited to the active period of the ERC Starting Grant Project. After the project is over, this blog is meant to offer a platform for collecting, presenting and informing on further research on related issues as well as a reference point for researchers who are looking for an introduction into the study of music and emotions, and in particular in times of health crises.