Motti Regev: Pop/Rock Music: Global Field, Ethno-National Cultural Uniqueness and Aesthetic Uniqueness and Aesthetic Cosmopolitanism

This paper looks at pop/rock music as a major expression of aesthetic cosmopolitanism which, in its turn, is characterized as a current form of ethno-national cultural uniqueness. The role played by pop/rock music in the transformation of ethno-national cultural uniqueness from essentialism to aesthetic cosmopolitanism is characterized as a “historical musical event”. The paper examines in this context the cultural work of musicians and critics. They are portrayed as agents simultaneously acting in two fields of cultural production: the global field of pop/rock music and the field of national culture. It is argued that the production of ethno-national pop/rock, and therefore of aesthetic cosmopolitanism, stems from the intersection of the specific structure and habitus of each of these two fields. Examples and illustrations will be given from various ethno-national pop/rock cultures, and especially from Israel and Argentina.