Dr. Theodore Gracyk Wins Outstanding Monograph Prize
The American Society for Aesthetics announces that the 2023 Prize for Outstanding Monograph has been awarded to Dr. Theodore Gracyk, professor in the History, Languages & Humanities Department, for Making Meaning in Popular Song: Philosophical Essays (Bloomsbury, 2022).
From Carly Simon to Pink Floyd, Dr. Gracyk explores meaning in popular music. The book’s thesis is that songs do not have determinate meanings, but performances and recordings do. Departing from existing theories, Dr. Gracyk compels readers to consider the performance, the life of the performer, and the reception of the music as contextually integral to the construction of meaning in popular music.
Each year since 2008, The American Society for Aesthetics awards a prize for an outstanding monograph in the philosophy of art or aesthetics that was published in the previous calendar year. Dr. Gracyk is the 16th recipient of this honor. For a previous book, Dr. Gracyk was co-winner of the 2002 Woody Guthrie Award (the 2002 IASPM/US Book Award).