Annotations

Aesthetic texts: signs, boundaries, and transgressions

Charles Sanders Peirce defined three basic types of signs: icons, indices and symbols. Each type of art generates texts composed of either one type of sign or combines different types. The types of art use either one code and one type of sign or multiple codes and all types of signs. The aim of the dissertation is detailed research of those types of aesthetic texts that radically exceed the limits of their own codes and thus actually exceed the boundaries of their kind. The transgression of boundaries results in one type of art using a certain type of sign as the basis for creating another type of sign. For example, poetry creates complex iconic signs from words, visual art uses symbolic signs to create graphic scores, visual art incorporates verbal symbolic signs into the structure of iconic signs, etc. The aim of the dissertation is to conduct detailed research of the widest possible spectrum of modalities of transgression and the interpretation of their effects in the process of constituting the meaning of an aesthetic text.

The doctoral dissertation focuses on the reflection of African music in contemporary popular culture, examining its historical roots, aesthetic principles, and global impact. It analyzes rhythmic structures, vocal techniques, and instrumental timbres that have permeated pop, hip-hop, jazz, and electronic music. Attention is also given to processes of cultural exchange, hybridization, and commercialization, including issues of authenticity and appropriation. The study highlights the role of media, migration, and digital platforms in the dissemination of African musical influences. Its aim is to demonstrate how African music shapes global trends and co-creates new identities in popular music. Methodologically, it combines musical analysis with cultural studies and case studies of contemporary artists across continents and genres in the global present. 

The dissertation project focus on lullabies as a specific form of sonic communication between mother and child that mediates cultural patterns and elements of identity through musical and lingual parameters. It is based on the hypothesis that even though a child does not understand the meaning of the text, it responds to the melody, rhythm, intonation, and onomatopoeia of the language, through which it accepts the cultural models present in the mother's musical expression. The theoretical framework of the work is formed by the concepts of cultural patterns (Ruth Benedict), music as an expression of a cultural system (Alan P. Merriam), and music as a medium of identity (Martin Stokes).
The research will combine structural musical analysis of lullabies with findings from ethnographic interviews focused on the identity of mothers, their repertoire of lullabies, and ways of interpreting them. Respondents will be selected to represent different identities present in Slovakia (ethnic, regional, national, global). By comparing the musical structures and narratives of mothers, the work will examine how cultural patterns are reflected in the sound practice of lulling children to sleep and what forms of identity transfer are realised in this context.

The peiodisation of the history of 20th century musical culture in Slovakia represents a complex and still unresolved issue. The temporal delimitation of the proposed doctoral project is inspired by a discussion published in 1965 in the journal Slovenská hudba under the title Twenty Years of Slovak Music in Discussion (Slovenská hudba 9/5, 196–201; 9/6, 242–250). The doctoral candidate may study aspects of creation, reception and institutional basis of musical culture in Bratislava on the basis of research into as yet unprocessed archival sources. It is both possible and appropriate to draw inspiration from more recent publications on culture and cultural policy during the period of state socialism in the countries of the Soviet bloc, above all, of course, in Czechoslovakia. This will make it possible to process and interpret historical knowledge from the musical sphere as part of the cultural history of our region and to contribute to the clarification of the influence of politics and ideology on existing concepts of collective identity and cultural practice.

The topic of holy men in medieval musical culture deals with the musical repertoire of monophonic liturgical music (Latin: cantus planus), which was intended for the feasts of male saints in the Esztergom liturgy (Mass liturgy, Office). Several important manuscripts with notation have been preserved in the cultural, educational, and ecclesiastical centers of medieval Hungary, now located in present-day Slovakia. The aim of this work will be to analyse and evaluate the specifics of this repertoire and to identify the basic transregional elements and local characteristics of liturgical practice in the Middle Ages. The sources of research will be the most important complete manuscripts (Bratislava Missal I, Spiš Gradual, Evangeliary of Nitre, Gradual of Nitra, Bratislava Antiphonary I, Bratislava Antiphonary II, Bratislava Antiphonary III, Bratislava Antiphonary IV, Spiš Antiphonary), as well as fragmentary preserved materials from various archival, museum, and library institutions in Slovakia or of Slovak provenance abroad.