Arts and Power / Kunst und Gesellschaft (PDF)

The focus on concepts of power and domination in societal structures has characterized sociology since its beginnings. Max Weber's definition of power as "imposing one's will on others" is still relevant to explaining processes in the arts, whether their production, imagination, communication, distribution, critique or consumption. Domination in the arts is exercised by internal and external rulers through institutionalized social structures and through beliefs about their legitimacy, achieved by defining and shaping art tastes.

Arts and Power: Policies in and by the Arts brings together diverse voices who position the societal functions of art in fields of domination and power, of structure and agency-whether they are used to impose hegemonic, totalitarian or unjust goals or to pursue social purposes fostering equal rights and grassroots democracy. The contributions in this volume are exploratory steps towards what we believe can be a more systematic, empirically and theoretically founded sociological debate on the arts and power. And they are an invitation to take further steps.

The editors

Prof. Dr. Lisa Gaupp, Professor of Cultural Institutions Studies at the Department of Cultural Management and Gender Studies (IKM) at the mdw - University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna

Hon. Prof. Dr. Alenka Barber-Kersovan, Honorary Professor of Sociology of Music at the Institute of Sociology and Cultural Organization at Leuphana University of Lüneburg

Prof. Dr. Volker Kirchberg, Professor of Sociology of the Arts at the Institute of Sociology and Cultural Organization at Leuphana University of Lüneburg