A Study of Feminist Music Criticism in McLarney's "Negative Termination"

Abstract

Traditional Western musicology has long been influenced by positivist trends, emphasizing the "basis" of academic research and the "authenticity" of history. Traditional positivism strives to exclude as many subjective factors as possible, pursuing the authenticity of documents and the reliability of evidence. The new musicology that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s seemed less "fond" of positivist ideas. New musicology is more interested in the subjective or personalized interpretation of musical works, integrating a wealth of cultural or social theories into these interpretations. For example, Lawrence Kramer, a representative figure in the cultural criticism branch of new musicology, incorporates Freudian psychoanalytic theory and other socio-cultural theories into his cultural-level musical interpretation of Richard Strauss's opera "Salome". This article will focus on three aspects of the new musicology field influenced by postmodernist trends, specifically feminist music criticism methods. The first part provides a brief overview of the content of the work, the second part discusses the specific manifestations of feminist music criticism used by McLaughlin in her book, and the third part examines and reflects on the feminist criticism employed by McLaughlin. This paper aims to understand and analyze the feminist music criticism theory represented by Susan McClary, so as to reveal the deep connotation of this music research theory, and try to analyze and discuss the shortcomings and the lessons that can be learned from this feminist music theory research, and hope to bring inspiration to young scholars in the field of Chinese musicology.