Resonance, dissonance, and the EU’s ‘soul’: notes on Rosa’s Musico-religious theme

ABSTRACT

This paper attempts to attune to the musical theme in Hartmut Rosa’s Resonance, not in the sense of singing from the same sheet but in a spirit of jamming and improvising, developing a fugue. Music, something close to Hartmut Rosa’s heart, grounds us; and simultaneously, music, like all works of art, originated in the service of magical-religious ritual, and the aura of the sacred is still essential to secularized ritual. Music springs from anthropologically deep-seated needs, and music transports us towards a higher, spiritual plane of ideals. How Resonance may help us to respond to dissonance caused by the loss of grounds and horizons is attended to in the case of the EU’s anthem.

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Kieran Keohane

Kieran Keohane is senior lecturer in Sociology in the Department of Sociology & Criminology, School of Society, Politics, and Ethics, at University College Cork. He is co-founder of the Moral Foundations of Economy & Society research centre, UCC and Waterford Institute of Technology, and co-organizer of an international research collaboration on the ‘Social Pathologies of Contemporary Civilization.