"Applied Theatre: Aesthetics re-examines how the idea of 'the aesthetic' is relevant to performance in social settings. The disinterestedness that traditional aesthetics claims as a key characteristic of art makes little sense when making performances with ordinary people, rooted in their lives and communities, and with personal and social change as its aim. Yet practitioners of applied arts know that their work is not reducible to social work, therapy...

What is music for? Is it the same in a Haydn symphony, the jazz fusion of Jaco Pastorius, a raga by Ravi Shankar, and an improvised song of grief in Papua New Guinea? This extremely concise book offers an opinionated and example-filled survey of some fundamental and longstanding debates about the nature of music. The central arguments and ideas are presented with the goal of making them as accessible as possible to general readers who have no background...