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Tobias Pontara
Professor
Aesthetics UnitAbout Tobias Pontara
Research
Two overarching themes have been central in my research over the past twenty years. The first can be described as a question of how depictions and representations of music influence people's ideas of what music is, how we should value music, and how we conceptualize and construct its meaning. The second question concerns the role of music itself (as well as sound) in shaping our perceptions of the world around us.
In my doctoral thesis "Letters From the World of Autonomous Music: The Discursive Construction of Musical Autonomy in the Contemporary Classical Record-Sleeve" from 2007, I examined how historically influential ideas about Western art music are reproduced in contemporary discourses linked to the international record industry. Since completing my thesis, my research has mainly revolved around three different areas: (1) film music and audiovisual world-making; (2) cultural and media-oriented studies focusing on discourses about music; and (3) music philosophy and aesthetics. In my research on film music, I have combined theoretical articles addressing fundamental concepts and issues in film music research and audiovisual studies with interpretations and analyses of specific films. The music philosophical research has focused on epistemological, methodological, and hermeneutic issues related both to musicological scholarship and to Anglo-American analytic music philosophy.
In the research project "Everyday Devices: Mediatization, Disciplining, and localization of music in Sweden 1900-1970" (funded by the Swedish Research Council 2016-2018), I studied how ideas about music listening are expressed and transformed in Swedish films between 1930 and 1970. In the research project "Tarkovsky's Soundtracks: The Significance of Music and Sound in Andrei Tarkovsky's Cinema" (funded by RJ Sabbatical 2018), I examined the role of music and sound in the films of the Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky. This project resulted in three scholarly articles and the monograph "Andrei Tarkovsky's Sounding Cinema: Music and Meaning from Solaris to The Sacrifice" (Routledge, 2020).
More recently, research focused on cultural and media theory has come to the forefront. Between 2018 and 2023 I was project leader for the research project "Classical Music for a Mediatized World: Visual and Audiovisual Representations of Western Art Music in Contemporary Media and Society" (funded by the Swedish Research Council) The project involved five researchers focusing on the representation of Western classical music in different types of contemporary media. The aim of the project was to deepen understanding of classical music as a cultural and mediatized contemporary phenomenon, with specific focus on the following research questions: (1) What are the predominant conceptions of classical music advanced by present-day mediatized discourses of the art form? (2) How, by what means, are these conceptions produced and communicated in contemporary media texts and representations? (3) How do media texts and representations of classical music relate to broader ongoing discourses on art, subjectivity, identity, gender, class, aesthetic experience, artistic value and cultural status? (4) How, and to what extent, are contemporary media representations of classical music implicated in a “politics of representation” by either reinforcing or challenging subject positions and regimes of representation traditionally accompanying the presentation and performance of classical music?
In the autumn of 2023, I initiated the research project "Conspiracy Soundtracks: The Role of Music and Sound in Audiovisually Mediated Conspiracy Theoretical Discourse" (funded by the Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences 2023-2026/27). The project examines how soundtrack phenomena – sound, music, silence, and voice-over – are mobilized to convey conspiracy theoretical messages in a media society increasingly characterized by multimodal and audiovisual communication. The central research question is: how and to what extent are sound elements involved in the audiovisual communication of conspiracy theoretical truth claims and worldviews?
I am a member of the interdisciplinary research school "The Future of Democracy: Cultural Analyses of Illiberal Populism in Times of Crisis" (funded by the Swedish Research Council 2023-2027), where I am among other things the main supervisor for a doctoral student. The aim of the research school is to develop methods and theories from cultural studies perspectives to analyze the populist movements threatening democratic development in Sweden and around the world. The research school includes researchers and doctoral students from the University of Gothenburg, Uppsala University, Linköping University, Lund University, Södertörn University, and Linnaeus University. Among the represented subjects are gender studies, ethnology, cultural studies, and musicology.
Teaching
I have taught in most areas of musicology: music history, music theory and analysis, popular music studies, film music, contemporary composition techniques, music and cultural theory, music aesthetics and philosophy, feminist and gender perspectives in musicology, music and media theory, opera, and ethnomusicology. I have also supervised a large number of essays at all levels and have served as the main supervisor and assistant supervisor for several research projects at the doctoral level. In addition to this, I have also taught at the two bachelor's programs – the Bachelor's Program Culture and Media, aesthetics and cultural entrepreneurship (MEK) – at the Department of Cultural Sciences. I was also involved in the development of the latter program (MEK). I have also taught in the Master’s Program in Culture and Democracy. Both in my teaching and previously as the director of studies in musicology (2014-2017) at the University of Gothenburg, I have sought to develop pedagogical perspectives and teaching methods aimed at a more research-based, problem-oriented, and student-active teaching approach.
Other
Between 2018 and 2021, I was the Deputy Head of Research at the Department of Cultural Sciences.
Since spring 2023, I have been a member of the Academic Appointments Board (Lärarförslagsnämnden) at the Faculty of Humanities, University of Gothenburg.
As of January 1, 2024, I am a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music's research committee.
Together with Catharina Thörn (Professor of Cultural Studies at the Department of Cultural Sciences, University of Gothenburg), I ran the podcast "Film Worlds" between 2020 and 2022: https://play.gu.se/channel/Filmvärldar/365188
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Conspiracy soundtracks: The role of sound and music in conspiracy theoretical
documentaries
Tobias Pontara
CONNOR: The Nordic Network of Conspiracy Theory Research Inaugural Conference, 23-24 maj 2024, Lund - 2024 -
Sonic worldmaking: Conspiracy theory and soundtrack rhetoric in Loose Change: An American Coup
(2009/2015)
Tobias Pontara
Musikforskning idag, 12-14 juni, 2024, Stockholm - 2024 -
Självcentrerade dirigenter och introverta musiklyssnare: Klassisk musik i samtida film och
tv-serier
Tobias Pontara
Klassisk musik i det moderna mediesamhället: Konstruktioner, föreställningar, förhandlingar / Red. Tobias Pontara & Åsa Bergman. - 2024 -
Sounds of Persuasion: Music and Voice in 9/11 Conspiracy
Documentaries
Tobias Pontara, Holly Rogers
Conspiracy theories, disinformation and ideological worldmaking in multimodal and audiovisual communication, Gothenburg 16-17 maj, 2024 - 2024 -
Inledning: Klassisk musik, diskurser och
medier
Tobias Pontara
Klassisk musik i det moderna mediesamhället: Konstruktioner, föreställningar, förhandlingar - 2024 -
Klassisk musik i det moderna mediesamhället: Konstruktioner, föreställningar,
förhandlingar
-
Music as Embodied and Emergent: Expanding on a Theme by Joseph
Margolis
Tobias Pontara, Ulrik Volgsten
International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music - 2023 -
Filmmusik och
världsskapande
Tobias Pontara
Ikaros - Tidskrift om människan och vetenskapen - 2023 -
Art Music, Perfection and Power: Critical Encounters with Classical Music Culture in Contemporary
Cinema
Tobias Pontara
Open Library of Humanities - 2021 -
Andrei Tarkovsky's Sounding Cinema: Music and Meaning from Solaris to The
Sacrifice
Tobias Pontara
2020 -
Musicalized ontologies: Exploring the role of music in contemporary cultural and political
worldmaking
Tobias Pontara, Ulrik Volgsten
Musikforskning idag, Lund,10 juni 2020 - 2020 -
Performance, Perfectionism, Power: Critical dialogues with classical music culture in Grand Piano (2013), The Violin Player (2018) and The Perfection
(2019)”
Tobias Pontara
Music and the Moving Image, New York, USA, 28 - 31 May, 2020 - 2020 -
Vem är egentligen Arthur
Fleck?
Tobias Pontara
Röda Rummet - 2020 -
Människan, musiken och kunskapen: om kunskap som slutgiltighet i Arvo Pärts
Magnificat
Tobias Pontara
Finsk Tidskrift - 2019 -
Hur lyssnar rollkaraktären? Skildringar av lyssnande till teknologiskt medierad musik i svenska filmer
1930-1970
Tobias Pontara
Musikens medialisering och musikaliseringen av medier och vardagsliv i Sverige / red. Ulrik Volgsten - 2019 -
Musikalisering och
medialisering
Tobias Pontara, Ulrik Volgsten
Musikens medialisering och musikaliseringen av medier och vardagsliv i Sverige / red. Ulrik Volgsten. - 2019 -
Allmänna teknologier och privata rum: förutsättningar för den digitala tidsålderns solipsistiska
ljudkultur
Tobias Pontara, Ulrik Volgsten
Musikens medialisering och musikaliseringen av medier och vardagsliv i Sverige / red. Ulrik Volgsten. - 2019 -
The Music of Sacrificial Acts: Displacement, Redemption; Beethoven and Verdi in Andrei Tarkovsky’s
Nostalghia
Tobias Pontara
Music, Memory, Nostalghia and Trauma in European Cinema after the Second World War (M. Baumgartner & E. Boczkowska, eds.) - 2019 -
Scoring the incomprehensible: The role and significance of electronic music in Andrei Tarkovsky’s Mirror
(1975)
Tobias Pontara
Music and the Moving Image. New York: May 24-27, 2018 - 2018 -
Listening to technologically mediated music in film:
Representations of social and solitary listening in Swedish cinema
1930–70
Tobias Pontara
Svensk tidskrift för musikforskning - 2018 -
Musicalization and
Mediatization
Tobias Pontara, Ulrik Volgsten
Mirac 2017 (Music Focused Interdisciplinary Research & Analysis Center), Stockholm, Sweden, November 22-23, 2017 - 2017 -
Domestic space, music technology and the emergence of solitary listening:
Tracing the roots of solipsistic sound culture in the digital
age
Tobias Pontara, Ulrik Volgsten
Svensk tidskrift för musikforskning - 2017 -
Musicalization and
Mediatization
Tobias Pontara, Ulrik Volgsten
Dynamics of mediatization: Institutional change and everyday transformations in a digital age / edited by Olivier Driessens, Göran Bolin, Andreas Hepp, Stig Hjarvard - 2017 -
Here, There and Everywhere: On the Musicalization of Everyday
Life
Ulrik Volgsten, Tobias Pontara
6th European Communication Conference. Mediated (Dis)Continuities: Contesting Pasts Presents and Futures (ECREA 2016), Prague, Czech Republic, November 9-12, 2016 - 2016 -
Classical Music in the Films of Andrei
Tarkovsky
Tobias Pontara
Royal Musical Association Annual Conference 2016. London: September 3-5, 2016. - 2016 -
Between creativity and justification: Theoretical and philosophical perspectives on critical interpretation in musical
research
Tobias Pontara
Keynote speech at the 2016 Finnish Doctoral Musicology Network. Helsinki/Järvenpää: September 26-28, 2016. - 2016 -
Interpretation and Underscoring: Modest Constructivism and the Issue of Nondiegetic versus Intradiegetic Music in
Film
Tobias Pontara
Music and the Moving Image - 2016 -
Scoring sacrificial acts: haunting memories, impossible longings and classical music in Andrei Tarkovsky’s
Nostalghia
Tobias Pontara
Music and the Moving Image. New York: May 29-31 2015 - 2015 -
Interpretation, Imputation, Plausibility: Towards a Theoretical Model for Musical
Hermeneutics
Tobias Pontara
International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music - 2015 -
A World With and Without Music: Models of Musical Underscoring and the Construction of the Cinematic
Diegesis
Tobias Pontara
17th Nordic Musicological Congress, Aalborg: August 11-14. - 2015 -
Bach at the Space Station: Hermeneutic Pliability and Multiplying Gaps in Andrei Tarkovsky's
Solaris
Tobias Pontara
Music, Sound, and the Moving Image - 2014 -
Bach, Wagner and Narrative Levels in Film – Classical Music in Ingmar Bergman’s Through a glass darkly (1961), Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris (1972) and Lars von Trier’s Melancholia
(2011)
Tobias Pontara
Musikforskning idag. Växjö: June 11-13 2014 - 2014 -
Interpretation and Underscoring: Modest Constructivism and the Issue of Nondiegetic versus Intra-diegetic Music in
Film
Tobias Pontara
Music and the Moving Image. New York: May 28 - June 1, 2014 - 2014 -
Recension av Ulrik Volgsten: Från snille till geni: den svenska kompositörsrollens omvandlingar från Kraus till
Måndagsgruppen
Tobias Pontara
Respons - 2013 -
Recension av James Wierzbicki (red.): Music, Sound, and Filmmakers: Sonic Style in
Cinema
Tobias Pontara
Svensk tidskrift för musikforskning - 2013 -
Bach at the Space Station: Exploring the Fantastical Gap in Andrei Tarkovsky’s
Solaris
Tobias Pontara
Music and Media, Torino: June 28-29 - 2012 -
Tolkning och trovärdighet: en diskussion utgående från två invändningar mot tolkningsstrategier inom den ”nya”
musikvetenskapen
Tobias Pontara
Musikforskning idag. Uppsala: June 14-16 - 2011 -
Methodology in Aesthetics: The Case of Musical
Expressivity
Tobias Pontara
Philosophical Studies - 2011 -
Beethoven Overcome: Romantic and Existentialist Utopia in Andrei Tarkovsky’s
Stalker
Tobias Pontara
19th Century Music - 2011 -
Intuitions and Evidence in Theories of Musical
Expressivity
Tobias Pontara, Erkki Huovinen
Music and Philosophy Study Day. Kings College, London: February 20-21 - 2010 -
Recension av Giles Hooper: The Discourse of
Musicology
Tobias Pontara
Svensk tidskrift för musikforskning - 2010 -
Ode to Silence: Beethoven’s Ninth and the Fate of Humanity in the Last Scene of Andrei Tarkovsky’s
Stalker
Tobias Pontara
Music and the Moving Image. New York: May 29-31 - 2009 -
Intuitioner, evidens och kunskapsanspråk: En närmare blick på den musikfilosofiska diskussionen om musikens
expressivitet
Tobias Pontara, Erkki Huovinen
Musikvetenskap idag. Lund: June, 9-11 - 2009 -
Beethoven, Bach and Tarkovsky: Classical music in Andrej Tarkovsky’s
films
Tobias Pontara
Leeds Film Music Conference. Leeds: November 6-7 - 2009 -
Recension av Olle Edström (red.): Säg det i toner och därtill med
ord
Tobias Pontara
Finsk Tidskrift - 2009 -
Recension av Alf Gabrielsson: Starka musikupplevelser: Musik är mycket mer än bara
musik
Tobias Pontara
Nutida Musik - 2009 -
Recension av Henrik Marstal: Arvo Pärt: Længslen efter de hvide
tangenter
Tobias Pontara
Nutida Musik - 2008 -
Ett tonalt välordnat samhälle eller anarki: estetiska och sociala aspekter på svensk konstmusik 1945-1960 (Mats
Arvidsson)
Tobias Pontara
Nutida Musik - 2008 -
Historiskt informerade framföranden: några kritiska reflektioner kring en övergiven
diskussion
Tobias Pontara
Svensk tidskrift för musikforskning - 2008 -
Retorik, hegemoni och musikforskning: mot en pragmatisk syn på
musikvetenskapen
Tobias Pontara
STM-Online - 2008 -
Brev från den autonoma musikens värld: den diskursiva konstruktionen av musikalisk autonomi i den samtida klassiska
CD.skivan
Tobias Pontara
2007 -
Constructing the relevant listener: power, knowledge and the construction of identity in the discourse of musical
autonomy
Tobias Pontara
Music & Identity: Transformation and Negotiation - 2007 -
Constructing the Relevant
Listener
Tobias Pontara
Music and Identity II. Mthatha, South Africa: April, 4-6 - 2006 -
Johannes Brahms symfonier och den musikaliska autonomins
diskurs
Tobias Pontara
Musikvetenskap idag. Växjö: June 7-9 - 2005 -
The Discourse of Autonomous Music and the Construction of
Identity
Tobias Pontara
Music and Identity I. Stellenboch: November 24-25 - 2004 -
The Possibility of Critically Informed
Performances
Tobias Pontara
Music: Concept, Writing and Performance. Copenhagen: November 25-29 - 2002