Sense and Sadness is an innovative study of music modality in relation to human emotion and the aesthetics of perception. It is also a musical story of survival through difficulty and pain. Focusing on chant at St George's Syrian Orthodox Church of Aleppo, author Tala Jarjour puts forward the concept of the emotional economy of aesthetics, which enables a new understanding of modal musicality in general and of Syriac musicality in particular. Jarjour combines insights from musicology and ethnomusicology, sound and religious studies, anthropology, history, East Christian and Middle Eastern studies, and the study of emotion, to seamlessly weave together multiple strands of a narrative which then becomes the very story it tells. Drawing on imagination and metaphor, she brings to the fore overlapping, at times contradictory, modes of sense and sense making. At once intimate and analytical, this ethnographic text entwines academic thinking with its subject(s) and subjectivities, portraying events, writing, people, and music as they unfold together through ritual commemorations and a devastating, ongoing war.

About the Author
Tala Jarjour's academic work focuses on music and religion, especially in contexts related to the Middle East. She wrote her PhD as a Gates Scholar at the University of Cambridge, and is currently Visiting Fellow at Yale University.

Reviews
At once singular and universal, Sense and Sadness is a story of rare power, told with compelling force. A riveting exploration of a musical tradition rarely treated in scholarship - thought-provoking, compelling, and urgent. * Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Willard Prescott and Annie McClelland Smith Professor of Religion and History, Brown University *
Sense and Sadness is little short of path-breaking: in addition to filling a major gap in the scholarship, it pushes the boundaries of current thinking about musical mode, affect, community, and ritual in the Middle East region. * Jonathan H. Shannon, Professor of Anthropology, Hunter College *



Book Information
ISBN 9780190635268
Author Tala Jarjour
Format Paperback
Page Count 248
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 363g
Dimensions(mm) 155mm * 231mm * 15mm