The potential of the concept of contingency for academic knowledge – exploratory attempts with an open outcome
The concept of contingency is currently in vogue in the cultural studies during the winter semester. Whilst literary scholar Albrecht Koschorke (Konstanz) had already critically examined postulates regarding a growing awareness of contingency in modernity, the cultural studies-oriented musicologist Frank Hentschel (Cologne) explored the question of the sense and nonsense of the concept of contingency specifically in relation to the verbalisation of music history.
The concept also offers potential for the historiography of music, particularly when it is understood not as arbitrariness, but as building upon identifiable preconditions whilst still encompassing alternatives. It is compelling due to the openness of meaning inherently embedded within it. This openness of meaning is particularly well suited to historical facts that, even after in-depth research, remain difficult to describe in a concise manner: On closer inspection, hardly any historical phenomenon is actually unambiguous or attributable to a single cause; none is one-sided, and none has consequences that are truly inevitable with no alternatives – if one historical fact is certain, it is that of contingency. But does this actually advance scholarship?
Clearly, yes. For where contingency is swept under the carpet, ideological distortions have free rein: Hentschel listed no fewer than five meaningful applications of the awareness and articulation of contingency for the research perspective, which seeks to counter normative viewpoints and their ‘decontingency strategies’. Further areas of potential application of the concept, ranging from the descriptive to the analytical level, were discussed in the subsequent workshop using musical examples from the Middle Ages to the present day – with open-ended conclusions regarding its benefits and limitations.