A Deleuzian reimagining of Susanne Langer’s philosophy: Becoming feeling in music education

Abstract

While Langer's assertions about feeling and art have had a marked impact on music educators’ thinking and action, they have also earned substantial critique. The purpose of this philosophical inquiry is to examine Langer's and Deleuze's writings about the ontology of art and to posit a new concept, ‘becoming feeling,’ inspired by the meeting of their philosophies. Deleuze's assertions about forces, intensities, and becomings avoid the pitfalls of Langer's statements about music's symbolic nature, but his focus on ‘nonhuman becomings’ has the potential to neglect the emotional aspects of humanity that Langer finds central to musical experiences. I offer that artistic experiences foster ‘becoming-feeling,’ which involves sensing the world as though one were specific, continually-changing feelings. Examples of how musically educative experiences centred on ‘becoming-feeling’ might lead to more refined and ordered understandings as well as to more complex and confused ones are offered.