第1部は、奈良女子大学のCOE「古代日本形成の特質解明」の一環として開催されたシンポジウム「死の機能―前方後円墳とは何か」の記録。巨大な前方後円墳が、なぜ築造されたのか...。初期の国家は、なぜ死者の ためにあのような巨大な施設をつくったのか...。古墳時代を、日本国家形成の一段階として、正当に位置づける。第2部には、上記シンポにパネラーとして参加した佐藤弘夫氏の新著『死者のゆくえ』の書評2本を収め る。同書は、死と生のありようを古代から現代までを見通した問題作で、本テーマにかかわる重要な問題を提起している。.

An engaging argument about what experimental music can tell us about being human. -/- In Experimenting the Human, G Douglas Barrett argues that experimental music speaks to the contemporary posthuman, a condition in which science and technology decenter human agency amid the uneven temporality of postwar global capitalism. Time moves forward for some during this period, while it seems to stand still or even move backward for others. Some say we’re already posthuman, while others endure the extended consequences of never (...) having been considered fully human in the first place. Experimental music reflects on this state, Barrett contends, through its interdisciplinary involvements in postwar science, technology, and art movements. -/- Rather than pursuing the human’s beyond, experimental music addresses the social and technological conditions that support such a pursuit. Barrett locates this tendency of experimentalism throughout its historical entanglements with cybernetics, and in his intimate analysis of Alvin Lucier’s neurofeedback music, Pamela Z’s BodySynth performances, Nam June Paik’s musical robotics, Pauline Oliveros’s experiments with radio astronomy, and work by Laetitia Sonami, Yasunao Tone, and Jerry Hunt. Through a unique meeting of music studies, media theory, and art history, Experimenting the Human provides fresh insights into what it means to be human. (shrink)