Conference Agenda

In the summer of 1831 Fanny Hensel contemplated cholera’s westward advance toward Berlin. By July 19 her diary grimly confirms that the disease had spread “throughout the East of Europe up to Danzig,” where whole cities were rumored to have been “eradicated from the face of the earth,” swallowed up “by cholera, plague, and fire.” Musically speaking, 1831 has also independently been noted as a decisive “turning point in [Hensel’s] career as a composer” (Todd, 2010). The months which followed cholera’s arrival at the docks of Charlottenburg saw Hensel’s revival of the influential Sunday concert series she directed upstream in the more urbane environs of Leipziger Straße 3. And it was this semi-private venue that would ultimately host the landmark performance of her most ambitious large-scale composition that December: a thirteen-movement work scored for SATB soloists, eight-part choir, and orchestra, the parts for which are labelled “Cantata on the Cessation of Cholera in Berlin.”

Drawing on original music analysis, this paper interrogates Hensel’s cantata as an idiosyncratic response to and commemoration of the second cholera pandemic (1826–37). In dialogue with recent reappraisals of art’s role in memorializing public health crises across the medical humanities (Altschuler, 2017; Lynteris, 2020), I contend that Hensel’s Choleramusik of 1831 occupies an exceptional position in a long-nineteenth-century context which broadly perceived cholera as a “filthy, foreign, and lower-class disease” simply “too foul and degrading” to inspire the kind of artistic treatment lavished on tuberculosis in Romantic “operas, novels, and paintings” (Snowden, 2019). Strikingly, Hensel’s seldom discussed cantata expresses bodily unease and religious awe throughout moments of harmonic and phrase-rhythmic destabilization elsewhere dubbed distinctively Henselian in the genre of secular art song (Rodgers, 2011). Listening to the Choleramusik in this full musical and social context ultimately suggests new ways of understanding Hensel as a composer who aspired to engage with expansive musical forces and issues of contemporary civic and political concern during the first century of global health.

In the early seventeenth century, the English physician Robert Fludd imagined the human body as a site of sonic circulation. Drawing on the Boethian concept of musica humana, Fludd’s writings configure the body as a divinely ordered monochord where blood and sound resonate in harmony with the celestial spheres. By merging ancient music theory with early modern anatomical science, his work challenged the prevailing visual empiricism of his time. This paper uses Fludd's conception of the body as a resonant circulatory system to interrogate the interplay between sensory experience and scientific knowledge in the early modern period.

Using late medieval interpretations of Boethian music theory as a framework (cf. Hicks, Composing the World, 2017), I show how passages from Fludd’s History of Both Worlds (Utriusque cosmi historia, 1619) and Amphitheater of Anatomy (Anatomiae Amphitheatrum, 1623) reformulate these traditions in response to emerging anatomical discoveries. Employing sonic imagery to bridge the gap between material observation and idealized sound, Fludd’s approach exemplifies the complex ways in which early modern thinkers engaged the entire sensorium to understand the worlds around them and within them. I situate my analysis of Fludd within ongoing discourses in historical sound studies and the history of science, particularly Andrew Chung’s recent call to reevaluate early music studies in light of the mutually constitutive relationship between colonialism and the Anthropocene (2023). I demonstrate that Fludd’s harmonic physiology reasserts the significance of auditory knowledge—what Steven Feld (1982) terms “acoustemology”—as an active force in early modern science. In this context, Fludd’s work emerges in critical counterpoint with new empirical paradigms. It also serves as a precursor to later debates about sensory perception in scientific practice.

Ultimately, Fludd’s adaptation of musica humana offers a nuanced model of the body as a resonant system, broadening our understanding of the role of sonic thinking in early modern science and music studies. This perspective repositions our understanding of medieval epistemologies in an early modern context and highlights the enduring impact of non-visual modes of knowing, particularly in the theorization of sound and music.

Concepts of the body, health, and illness are socioculturally and historically contingent, reflecting cultural, political, and moral paradigms of a given time. Popular music and its diverse cultural expressions play a crucial role in shaping these constructions, actively contributing to the societal definition of what is perceived as a “normal” and “healthy” body. However, this influence is ambivalent: While popular music can challenge dominant body ideals, it has also perpetuated harmful trends. The (re)production of toxic aesthetics—such as heroin chic in grunge—or unattainable body norms, exemplified by the flawless, hyper-disciplined physiques of pop stars, has contributed to distorted self- and body perceptions, potentially fostering mental health disorders such as depression and eating disorders.

In recent years, however, popular music has increasingly emerged as a site of resistance, promoting health-conscious narratives, amplifying diverse body performances, and critically engaging with restrictive health ideals (Ptatscheck 2025, Holmes 2023, Franssen 2020). Female pop artists such as Lady Gaga, Billie Eilish, and Lizzo have actively disrupted heteronormative body ideals and mental health stigmatization by advocating for self-love and body positivity in their musical and media performances. More recently, Ariana Grande’s TikTok statement on body shaming and the discourse surrounding her supposedly “unhealthy” appearance have reignited debates on body image, self-determination, and subjective well-being. This shift is conceptualized in this paper as the healthy turn.

Using Ariana Grande as a case study, this paper critically examines body- and health-related trends and transformation processes in popular music. Employing ethnographic and netnographic methodologies, supplemented by music and media analyses (e.g., songs, lyrics, interviews), it explores her body image and (self-)presentation about prevailing body norms and health discourses. These dimensions are contextualized within the broader framework of the music and celebrity industries, and contemporary self-improvement culture (Allen 2011, Littler 2013), shaped by gendered discourse and power dynamics (Gill 2007, McRobbie 2015). By deepening understanding of health-related narratives in popular music cultures, this paper seeks to advance critical academic debates and establish a foundation for integrating health discourses into music studies.