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Call for papers “What there is and what there is not to read about music in Hebrew”
The Israeli Musicological Association published today a call for papers on the subject: “What there is and what there is not to read about music in Hebrew”. The meeting will take place at the Hebrew University on Sunday, 29 June 2008. The aim of the meeting, so it is argued, is to discuss what does not exist in Hebrew on music.
It is true that there are some books in Hebrew that one can find in the library. The problem is that most of these books are out of print, so most Israelis cannot find them in the book shops.
Another problem is the quality of these books. The main problem is that, by large, the shift that occurred in the academic world in general since the 1970s and in musicology since the 1990s did not reach Israel. There are a small number of ‘serious’ scholars in Israel (how one measures serious is a big question, however, the criteria of whether one published anything in the last five years (and in what journals and publication houses) could be sufficient to prove my point). Many Israeli scholars are disconnected from the social and cultural research that dominates the scholarly world today. Perhaps they read what is written, but how many of them make a serious contribution to the field in a global sense? There are few dear individuals that do make a contribution, but they are an exception to the rule.
I hope that the Israeli Musicological Association annual meeting will discuss not only what is not written, but also what should be written. Do we need more Schenkerian books in Hebrew that almost no one reads, or is there a more desperate need for books that might be of interest to a larger amount of readers?
To be fair, there are some excellent musicologists in Israel. Yet there voice is usually not heared and does not reach the wide public (one of the reasons that we are speaking about writings in Hebrew is connected to the attempt to be relevant to more people in Israel and perhaps also USA).
A noteworthy journal that is gathering momentum is Tav+ which is dealing with music in the context of society. The journal is consciously semi academic and it is one of the only publications that is dealing with contemporary music making in Israel. It is a pity that this journal is not sold in book shops like stimatzki and tzomet sfarim. The journal, however, contains lots of interesting articles.
I wrote a few days ago a post called ‘Why no books about music? Think about it!’ which is about how poor the situation in Israel is (with relation to issue of books on music), and I mentioned the book by Cook that was translated lately. This book is a good change in the Israeli scene. I hope that the translation of other books will follow (one has in mind the second book by John Rink on performance and books by many other authors). The translation of books could be a good way to fill the book shops with updated and interesting books on music in Hebrew.
I have little hope that the Israel academic world can make a contribution to the Israeli society. There are few scholars in Israel that actually publish interesting things, and one of the important reasons for this, is the lack of budget for music research in Israel. The budget for the Universities in Israel is constantly being reduced. There does not seem to be any sign that something will change (although things usually do change exactly at such times). Perhpas the talented authors in Israel should try to find ways not to be dependent on government budget.
I hope that I am not too pessimistic. I do hope that things will change and that more and more scholars will be able to take part in this change. The young generation is the promise. There are quite a few young Israeli musicologists who are curious, updated and ready to contribute. The internet is another way to help scholars to be creative and productive.
Do you have any thoughts on this issue? Please feel free to comment on this post with the form below. Perhaps this way a discussion will start – something that is very missing in Israel.
I responded to some of the comments to this email in the follwing links: Response to Dr Elisheva Rigbi’s second comment: are we normal? Why my Blog is in English: an answer to Dr. Elisheva Rigbi We seem to fail doing the very same thing in music Here it comes מה יש ומה אין לקרוא על מוסיקה בעברית Review of the IMS conference 2008: what there is and what there is not to read in Hebrew in Music
Just a few short comments:
1) Want to make a contribution to Israeli society? How about writing your blog IN HEBREW! Then you might have more than just “little hope that the Israeli academic world can make a contribution to Israeli society”. The whole point of the ISrael Musicological Society upcoming panel is that the absence of a critical mass of literature on music IN HEBREW is has grave implications for the future of Israeli musical culture.Note that ‘culture’ includes more than the scholarly community.
2) If you read the call for papers to the end, you’ll see that the aim of the upcoming IMS discussion is not merely to address “what does not exist in Hebrew on Music”, as you claim, but to consider “what there is and what there isn’t to read about music in Hebrew, the causes for this, its implication for Israeli musical culture and its future, and ways to correct the situation in order to promote musical discourse in Israel”, the latter including what should be published.
3) As you “shoot in all directions”, you confuse scholarly publications (which are, of necessity, in foreign languages) with other types of literature on music which are needed in Hebrew.
Dear Elisheva, that you for your comment. You can read why I write my blog in English in my post http://www.bymusic.org/byblog/language-should-scholar-choose-writing.html
I do not understand what made you write points 3 (which I left) and 4 (which I deleted – personal attacks are out of the game).
I am looking forward for the conference. I hope that the right questions will be asked and that actions will be taken thereafter.
Dear Avior,
I can’t see why you complain about “personal attacks” when your original blog was none other that a personal attack on each and every Israeli musicologist.
It also seems to me that you edited your blog on our call for papers since my response, toning it down and ommitting the most damning remarks about our collegues. That’s good, but I think you should record the changes that you made.
Finally, I agree that we have some pretty bad and outdated musicologists here, just like everywhere else. But we also have good ones, like elsewhere.
Avior: You can find my reaction to this comment at http://www.bymusic.org/blog/2008/05/Response-Elisheva-Rigbi-normal.html
I read your arrticle. You are right, of course (but so is Elisheva, commenting about your writing the blog in English: why not in Hebrew?), and I thank you for recommending Tav+ .
Important: Stymatzki and Tzomet-Sfarim + all the rest refuse to Buy/sell Tav+, because it is not “profitable”.
I’ve translated the book Music, a Very Short Introduction 8 years ago, and only a year or two ago - after ‘pushing’ the publishers (Yedio’t Ahronot) they decided to publish it, but didn’t make any effort to do some PR and sell it.
The situation is very sad. I’m almost desperate.
Hi Avior,
Congrats for a great site and for an interesting blog! I’d like to follow some of the threads of the posts and comments here, and let me begin by referring to the following sentence, taken from your own post: “The main problem is that, by large, the shift that occurred in the academic world in general since the 1970s and in musicology since the 1990s did not reach Israel.”
If you mean that this methodological shift has left little imprint on studies published in Hebrew, then perhaps you are right. But this might owe more to the paucity of publications in Hebrew in our domain (as you yourself point out), than with a colossal unawareness of “what’s going on out there” in terms of scholarship. And if indeed scholars are less conversant with the latest academic shifts – how should this affect the way we view their scholarship, if we still value it as solid? Finally, what shifts do you have in mind—from the 1970s?—that the Israeli academia has not caught up with yet?
The issue of Hebrew vs. English (or other foreign languages) in Israeli academia is a thorny one, and is unlikely to get resolved any time soon, I’m afraid. At the heart of the problem lies the issue of publics: the audience we write for, and, for those who actually hold a position in academic institutions, the big-wigs in academia who will decide on our tenure, promotion, and so forth. To reach a wider audience (and I shriek when I write ‘wide’, for we really have a tiny audience, even internationally), we need to communicate in a language that is understood by as many as possible (this is not poetry, after all). Whether we like it or not, the lingua franca of Western academia is English (the Franks are turning in their graves, I am sure!). If I write in Hebrew, I stand a good chance of losing even the little audience I have. As for the academic bureaucracy, the other audience I have in mind, I can tell you from the little experience I have that they do not encourage writing in Hebrew, to say the least. This is not done in any official, deliberate way, but the point is clear: in order to be positively evaluated, you must publish in peer-reviewed journals, and those, alas, tend to be in English.
As I write this, the example of the Netherlands comes to mind: here is a nation of some 16 million people, with fine academic institutions and musicologists. The problem is that with a few exceptions, Dutch is not spoken outside the Netherlands. In order to remain relevant and attain greater readership, the majority of them publishes in English (Rob Wegman, and Jacques Boogaart, for instance), including in journals published in the Netherlands. I think the parallels with Hebrew are self evident. In that respect, when it comes to musicology, the situation in Israel is not as bad, especially when compared with other countries (Belgium, Greece, Norway, etc) or US states (Virginia, with some 7 million people). Israeli musicologists have a lot to say in international forums, and I, for one, usually see more Israeli scholars give talks (and many times, good ones) in international conferences than I see coming from Sweden, Austria, or from Portugal.
You write that “The young generation is the promise. There are quite a few young Israeli musicologists who are curious, updated and ready to contribute.” The cliché that the young hold the promise to the future needs no further beatings from me, but let me add that I think we (the relatively young?) have a lot to learn from the old. To mention just one example, I am thinking of such a giant scholar as Amnon Shiloah, who is considered a world-renowned authority on all things related to music in Islam. But this whole debate should not be ad hominem, really, for there are much broader themes that are at stake.
Finally, I also want to comment on the style in which you address people who post their replies here. Letting Elisheva know that you deleted one of her points that presumably contained a personal attack on you, and what’s more, doing so in a public forum, you do two contradictory things: you supposedly protect her from her own words, but at the same time expose and reprimand her publically. I think it’s not a very collegial thing to do. You could have simply posted her blog “as is,” and let her bear the brunt of its consequences, or else reply to her in private and save her the embarrassment. But appearing to “save her” from her own words, on the one hand, and then telling everyone about it, on the other, is just a non-sequitur. To end with your own words, such rhetorical maneuvers should be “out of the game.”
thanks,
Yossi
Avior Byron: Here is my answer to this comment
http://www.bymusic.org/blog/2008/05/we-fail-doing-same-thing-in-music.html
See comment by Loya Shay at
http://www.bymusic.org/blog/2008/05/created-poll-site-vote-question.html#comment-11