[CS] TODAY! Judith Becker lecture, "Rapture: Religious Ecstatics and `Deep Listeners'" is Feb. 11 at 5:30 p.m.

[Paula Harmon]

Public lecture by Judith Becker, Professor Emeritus of Ethnomusicology,
School of Music, University of Michigan. Thursday, Feb. 11 at 5:30 p.m.
in Franklin Patterson Hall's Main Lecture Hall, Hampshire College.

Lecture Abstract, "Rapture: Religious Ecstatics and `Deep Listeners'":
In her book Deep Listeners: Music, Emotion and Trancing (2004), Judith
Becker proposed that there may be a physiological relationship between
religious ecstatics and secular "deep listeners." She defines "deep
listeners" as those people who may feel chills or goosebumps, or who may
cry when listening to music they find moving. She proposes that both
religious ecstatics and "deep listeners" experience strong, deep brain
emotional responses when listening to music they find deeply moving. Her
talk is about a scientific experiment that she conducted to test the
hypothesis concerning a physiological relationship between religious
ecstatics and deep listeners.

Biographical Summary:
http://www.music.umich.edu/departments/musicology/JudithBecker.htm
An authority on Indonesian music, Judith Becker was director of the
Center for Southeast Asian Studies and co-founder and director of the
Center for World Performance Studies at the University of Michigan.
Becker is the author of numerous articles and three books, including
Deep Listeners: Music, Emotion, and Trancing (2004) for which she
received the Alan Merriam award from the Society for Ethnomusicology for
the best book in ethnomusicology published in 2004. She is also author
of the three-volume set of translations entitled Karawitan: Source
Readings in Javanese Gamelan and Vocal Music (1984, 1986, 1987). Through
exploring the common ground between the
humanistic/cultural/anthropological and the
scientific/cognitive/psychological, Becker's research focuses on the
relationships between music, emotion and ecstasy in institutionalized
religious contexts and in secular contexts.

Becker's lecture is the fourth event in the CBD lecture series "Art on
the Brain." Please join us on Thursday, February 11 at 5:30 in Main
Lecture Hall.

-- 
Paula Harmon, Program Coordinator
FPR-HC Program in Culture, Brain, and Development
Hampshire College
893 West Street
Amherst, MA 01002
phone: 413.559.5501
fax: 413.559.5438
http://cbd.hampshire.edu