Music and the Political Rights

Júlia Donley, Lambert Dousson, Jason Julliot, Maggie Jones

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Júlia Donley, Lambert Dousson, Jason Julliot, Maggie Jones. Music and the Political Rights. Trans-position. Musique et sciences sociales, 2025, 13, 10.4000/15b0r. hal-05504597

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# Music and the Political Rights

Júlia Donley, Lambert Dousson and Jason Julliot

Translator: Maggie Jones

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /></figure>

**Electronic version**

URL: https://journals.openedition.org/transposition/10270

DOI: 10.4000/15b0r

ISSN: 2110-6134

**This article is a translation of:**

La musique et les droites - URL : https://journals.openedition.org/transposition/10147 [fr]

**Publisher**

CRAL - Centre de recherche sur les arts et le langage

**Electronic reference**

Júlia Donley, Lambert Dousson and Jason Julliot, "Music and the Political Rights", *Transposition* [Online], 13 | 2025, Online since 12 January 2026, connection on 13 January 2026. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/transposition/10270 ; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/15b0r

This text was automatically generated on January 13, 2026.

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# Music and the Political Rights

Júlia Donley, Lambert Dousson and Jason Julliot

Translation: Maggie Jones

## Music and Politics: Images of the People

1. In September 2025, the sixth edition of the Intervision Song Contest brought together some twenty artists from countries of the former USSR, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas in a newly built concert venue on the outskirts of Moscow. Revived after a seventy-year history and a sixteen-season hiatus, the contest was an opportunity for states of the former communist bloc (including Russia, China, Vietnam, Cuba, Serbia, and Kazakhstan), and several BRICS+ nations (such as Brazil, India, South Africa, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Ethiopia), to take part in a cultural initiative designed to rival Eurovision while also presenting a deliberate counter-model¹. Statements by Sergey Lavrov, a minister involved in shaping the contest, made clear the Russian state's intent to directly challenge the organisers of the European contest² who, since the early 2000s, have promoted a liberal consumerist model that, at least rhetorically, prioritises diversity and inclusivity³.

2. The use of spectacular cultural events to advance conservative political agendas is by no means unique to Vladimir Putin's Russia. Since the mid-2010s, right-wing and far-right leaders who have come to power around the world have staged similar events. In September 2019, a joint rally between Narendra Modi and Donald Trump in Houston, Texas, took the form of a mega-concert interspersed with political speeches before a crowd of more than 50,000⁴, prompting frequent media descriptions of the Indian Prime Minister as a “rock star”⁵. The traditional *Marcha para Jesus*, a religious cultural event organised by evangelical churches in many Brazilian cities, has since 2019 become a platform for former President Jair Bolsonaro⁶. Since 2021, MCC Feszt has brought together tens of thousands of young Hungarians every year near Budapest for several days of concerts, festivities and talks by politicians close to Viktor Orbán's Fidesz party or the US conservative right⁷. Music also plays a prominent role in Derecha Fest, an event organised by Javier Milei's political entourage: at its second edition in
2025, each speaker – including the Argentine president – was introduced to blasting heavy metal music, with Milei's triumphant, exuberant entrance also echoing that of a rock star⁸. Similarly, a year earlier, music played a central role in the Parisian “Israel is Forever” gala, organised by associates of the Likud and the Religious Zionist Party⁹.

While these musical displays of power all form part of a broader movement of conservative reassertion, they draw on varying value systems. In Central Europe and Russia, they celebrate ideals of tradition and national sovereignty, positioned in opposition to a Western Europe portrayed as “decadent”¹⁰. In Latin America, such events often merge religious fervour, patriotism, and ultraliberalism, fuelled by a culture-war rhetoric tied to the rise of Pentecostalism – as seen in the rallies of Jair Bolsonaro¹¹ and Javier Milei¹². Elsewhere, these spectacles support ultranationalist or fundamentalist movements, exemplified by those aligned with Benjamin Netanyahu and Bezalel Smotrich¹³.

These large-scale events borrow the visual and sonic codes of pop-rock culture and Hollywood blockbusters, deploying spectacular staging, technical effects, and epic aesthetics to foster mass appeal and ideological adherence. They construct and perform a particular image of “the people” through mainstream entertainment formats – whether mass-mediated spectacles or immersive experiences inspired by theme parks such as Puy du Fou in France and Spain¹⁴. In this sense, they contribute to the shaping of a kind of a cultural geography of contemporary right-wing movements, where moral, religious, nationalist, economic, and artistic references intersect.

Beyond these high-profile, politically orchestrated spectacles, a multitude of smaller-scale cultural expressions – militant anthems, campaign videos, support concerts, marches honouring national heroes, or community events – also reflect right-leaning aspirations to varying degrees. In France, for instance, such initiatives may seek to revive a rural-rooted national narrative through village festivals featuring fairs, parades, dances and communal feasts, etc.¹⁵. This diversity of actors, values and artistic forms complicates any attempt to categorise them under a single ideological banner. Rather than assuming the unity of a “right-wing” bloc behind these varied cultural productions, this issue therefore proposes to shift the focus and examine how recent works in social science approach political reconfigurations through the prism of music.

## The Pluralisation of the Right

As a political category, “the right” refers to a broad repertoire of practices and ideas whose boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred. It encompasses principles that are sometimes contradictory: the defence of free-market competition alongside the protection of cultural exception and national identity¹⁶, the call for law and of order alongside the valorisation of individual freedom¹⁷, and the preservation of social hierarchies and traditional or religious values alongside the assertion of meritocracy¹⁸. This diversity is further complicated by the erosion of traditional markers: political positions once referred to as “moderate right”, “liberal right”, “governmental right” or simply “right-wing” – and thus distinguished from a far right historically associated with the fascist and Nazi movements of the 20th century – are now increasingly difficult to identify and situate. This ambiguity stems from recent experiences in government that have redefined political cleavages, as well as the growing porosity between the values and positions of mainstream right-wing and far-right parties¹⁹. It is further
reinforced by the gradual structuring of what political scientists have described as the “reactionary international”, the “new fascist international”²⁰ and the “global far right”²¹.

7 The contemporary right is a polymorphous phenomenon; its plasticity is evident in the normalisation of far-right themes, which now permeate the agendas of so-called moderate right-wing parties and even parts of the left²². This shifting of boundaries and principles complicates the task of defining political categories, leading researchers to emphasise the heterogeneity of movements that identify – or can be identified – as right-wing and to prefer an understanding grounded in plurality rather than a unified model²³.

8 In several national contexts, these developments have resulted in governments where far-right parties or their allies have held power, implementing policies that have eroded public services, redistributive mechanisms and minority rights, particularly those of women, LGBTQ+ individuals, immigrants, and foreigners²⁴. These transformations have fuelled an interpretation of the rise of the right as a backlash – a reactionary pushback – where the classic economic left-right divide has given way to a new cultural divide opposing liberal-cosmopolitan elites to populist forces²⁵. In this perspective, support for right-wing parties is seen less as an expression of economic interest than as a nostalgic reaction to long-term cultural shifts, or even as a form of resistance against the modernisation of social norms, economic globalisation, and the expansion of civil and social rights, driven by groups seeking stability amid rapid societal change²⁶.

9 Other analyses, however, propose a more nuanced reading. Sociologist Vincent Tiberj argues that these recent dynamics should be understood not as a simple desire to turn back the clock but as a structural shift in political and symbolic reference points. He proposes a two-axis model: one socio-economic, concerning redistribution, the role of the state, labour rights, and institutionalised solidarity; the other cultural, addressing national identity, cultural diversity, migration, gender, and social norms, distinguishing between more homogeneous visions of society and others based on pluralism and equality ²⁷. This dual framework allows him to conceptualise a process of “droitisation” (rightward shift) not as a punctual conservative backlash but as a gradual transformation, observable on both the demand side (voters) and the supply side (political parties), and pertaining to distinct dimensions of political positioning. In this regard, the concept of droitisation accounts for the ideological and programmatic diversity encompassed by “the right,” across different national contexts and political cleavages²⁸.

10 Whether interpreting the recent shifts in right-wing political positioning as a backlash or as part of a broader process of droitisation, researchers agree on the need to move beyond purely economic analysis to consider cultural and symbolic phenomena. In this light, artistic expressions – particularly music and sound – offer a valuable lens for examining political conceptions. Because they resonate with individual identities (those of both artists and listeners) while also fostering a sense of collective belonging, musical practices contribute to the production and circulation of political values. As a social phenomenon, music embodies, makes audible and helps shape ideological reconfigurations. Studying musical and sonic practices associated with the right therefore offers a way to move beyond a strictly electoral or discursive focus and to grasp what is at stake in the interaction between aesthetics and political ethics.
Resistance, Instrumentalisation, Adherence

11 In the field of studies on the relationship between music and political power, historians have produced a wealth of knowledge on music under so-called right-wing regimes. Much of this research has focused on the effects of autocratic, nationalist and fascist regimes on music and musical life throughout the 20th century. Whether examining musical life in France under German occupation²⁹ or in fascist Italy³⁰, the experiences of Jewish musicians under the Nazi death apparatus³¹, musical creation under Franco in Spain³², or the conditions of artists under authoritarian or dictatorial regimes in Chile³³, Argentina³⁴ and Brazil³⁵, scholars have analysed the various processes at work at the intersection of political power and musical production. These include the dynamics of ideological and administrative control in places of training and dissemination (such as music organisations and institutions, record companies and radio stations), the subjugation of musical production through diverse mechanisms (varying degrees of programming guidance, censorship, or even torture), and the trajectories of the actors involved (perpetrators and collaborators, victims and witnesses, resistors and opportunists).

12 Such mechanisms are also found in political situations considered democratic, particularly in the English-speaking world during the second half of the 20th century. Several works have shed light on the effects of the “culture war”³⁶ on musical creation, waged by conservative movements in the 1980s during the administrations of Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom, both of whom invoked economic and moral arguments to justify restrictions on public investment in culture³⁷. These political choices were accompanied by restrictive legislation targeting subcultures such as reggae, heavy metal, punk and even pop³⁸, and have been analysed through the lens of “moral panic”³⁹. However, attempts at censorship by conservative circles date back further: in the 1940s, jazz musicians in both Europe and the United States were targets of hate speech and violence⁴⁰. Similarly, early rock ‘n’ roll musicians faced organised campaigns of intimidation by groups such as the Ku Klux Klan⁴¹.

13 Today, cultural and artistic spheres are challenged by several converging dynamics. First, neoliberal policies have gradually shifted responsibility for cultural funding to private operators, weakening public systems of direct support⁴². Second, artistic productions are regularly targeted in clashes between critical approaches and conservative viewpoints. These controversies take many forms: accusations of elitism directed at cultural institutions under the banner of a particular conception of cultural democratisation⁴³, claims of attacks on morality or religion, criticism of supposed “woke” ideologies⁴⁴ focused on themes such as sexual orientation and gender identity, or rooted in critical race theory. In some cases, such clashes have led to the defacement of works, the removal of books or recordings from libraries, bookshops or record stores, or the cancellation or interruption of exhibitions, theatre performances or concerts⁴⁵. In other cases, cultural institutions have been taken over entirely by those in power⁴⁶.

14 These attacks, taken up or amplified by political, media or religious intermediaries, contribute to a climate of uncertainty and self-censorship in the artistic world. In this context, cultural actors navigate three main paths: complying with the demands of
those in power, actively defending creative freedom through their art or public statements⁴⁷, or occupying a sort of middle ground by depoliticising themselves to preserve visibility and access to resources⁴⁸ – a dilemma that concerns both artists and all intermediaries involved in music production and distribution, from programming to radio and record production.

However, while certain actors or structures in the music world may face the effects of public policies implemented by right-wing parties, music can also serve as an active vehicle for values and imagery associated with the right. As Jonathan Thomas has shown regarding the Société d'Études et de Relations Publiques (SERP) founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen, music publishing can be employed strategically: by releasing records combining military songs, historical archives and popular music, between 1963 and 1999, the SERP constructed a collective memory and a fantasised national identity intended to mobilise listeners around Le Pen's political project⁴⁹. Similarly, identity-focused rock bands such as In Memoriam and Les Brigandes⁵⁰ explicitly address nationalist and conservative themes in their songs. This ideological role of lyrics extends to other contexts, from Jason Aldean's Trumpist country music in the United States⁵¹ to 1990s Norwegian black metal⁵², which draw on literary sources to cultivate an imaginary of national purity. Music can also be instrumentalised for political communication: productions by professional or amateur artists can be used in election campaigns or as part of event staging to promoting the image of candidates or elected officials, as with Olivier Anthony's songs during the Republican primary for the U.S. presidential election in 2023–2024⁵³.

This political exploitation goes so far as to lead to a re-evaluation or even a rewriting of the original meaning of certain productions, either with the approval of their creators, as illustrated by the political transformation of the disco hit “YMCA” by the Village People, a gay anthem from 1978 that became Donald J. Trump's victory anthem in 2024⁵⁴, or without their consent, as was the case on several occasions with Bruce Springsteen's “Born in the USA” (1984), a condemnation of the Vietnam War that was hijacked as a patriotic anthem by Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.

These processes of repurposing, appropriation, instrumentalisation, and reinterpretation are all the easier when applied to wordless music, as in the case of the finale of Beethoven's *Ninth Symphony*, “Ode to Joy”, which became the anthem of the European Union after previously serving as the anthem of the Republic of Rhodesia, a short-lived white nationalist state located on the borders of what is now Zimbabwe⁵⁵. The circulation of musical signifiers thus reveals their plasticity as floating political signifieds, such as the second movement, “Allegretto”, of Beethoven's *Seventh Symphony*, which was used as the soundtrack for a clip (widely commented on social media) in which the far-right polemicist Éric Zemmour declared his candidacy for the French presidential elections on 30 November 2021, parodying King George VI's inspirational radio speech announcing the entry into war of Great Britain and the Commonwealth in *The King's Speech* (Tom Hooper, 2010). Finally, religious spheres provide further arenas for musical conservatism, whether in gospel stars' support for Jair Bolsonaro (Lima 2023) or in Catholic mobilisation against concerts deemed blasphemous, as American organist Kali Malone experienced when her performance was blocked by the far-right fundamentalist movement Civitas⁵⁶. In these diverse cases, music functions as an aesthetic, moral and political medium for identity construction.
18

Building on scholarship exploring the relationship between music and politics in the 20th century, this issue seeks to examine their transformations in the world today. The four articles presented here explore distinct national contexts, marked by hypercontemporary dynamics and events such as the Covid-19 pandemic, Donald Trump's political rise, the war in Ukraine and broader mechanisms of influence and propaganda in a globalised world. They analyse highly contrasting forms of political mobilisation through music, from collective and highly institutionalised manifestations to more individual and marginal expressions emerging from Do-It-Yourself (DIY) practices. Together, these contributions provide an overview of the diversity of political uses of music and sound events in a context of rapidly reconfiguring media spaces, visibility regimes and modes of engagement.

A Multidimensional Perspective on Music and the
Plural Right

19

The dossier opens with Laurent Beauguitte's article, "Rock Against Communism in France (1984-2024)", which traces this music scene over four decades, from its emergence to its gradual marginalisation. Drawing on an extensive corpus of records, interviews, fanzines and digital archives, and employing a mixed methodology combining prosopography (the life and career trajectories of artists, labels and concert organisers) with content analysis (lyrics and iconography), the author charts the history of a neo-Nazi musical subculture. Born at the intersection of the Oi! scene and skinhead culture, this subculture adopted DIY codes to disseminate an explicitly racist and anti-Semitic ideology. He shows that, despite the central role played by the Brest-based label Rebelles Européens, this male, young and provincial scene has remained weakly institutionalised, operating primarily according to the logic of underground cultures, marked by limited commercial prospects, artisanal production, a niche audience, and highly versatile core actors. The second part of the article examines in greater detail the dynamics of marginalisation of French RAC since the 2000s. Facing competition from more mainstream movements (e.g., French identity rock) and younger scenes such as National Socialist Black Metal, the RAC scene has aged without renewal, even as digitalisation facilitates both the circulation of its productions and the weakening of its labels. The author highlights the transformation of a militant counterculture into a memorial scene, dedicated to preserving and reissuing past productions in quasi-heritage forms. He concludes that political co-optation is impossible: too radical for far-right parties, RAC remains an infra-political, marginal expression, where provocation and identity politics outweigh militant action.

20

The article by Allyson Rogers and Gale Franklin analyses the Freedom Convoy movement that occupied downtown Ottawa for eighteen days in 2022, amid protests against Covid-19-related public health measures. The authors describe how the urban space was turned into a festival-like environment, blending techno and rock music, speeches, and the sounds of engines and generators. Drawing on Cara Daggett's concept of "petro-masculinity", they show how the predominantly white, middle-class male participants constructed a political imaginary linking masculinity, individual freedom, and defence of the oil industry. Forming soundscapes, music and sound functioned as key vehicles of legitimisation, helping cast an image of a participatory and multicultural movement. This soundscape embodies what the authors term "cultural
extractivism": a symbolic appropriation that borrows from minority expressions to advance a conservative, majority-driven agenda. By co-opting the aesthetic and discursive codes associated with feminist, anti-racist and Indigenous struggles, this cultural logic mirrors the material logic of energy extractivism, exploiting sonic and symbolic resources without acknowledging their origins or the power structures behind them.

21 The article's strength lies in its framing of music as a resource that can be appropriated by social groups (classes, communities, parties) with divergent interests. The concept of cultural extractivism illuminates how music and sound mediate domination by claiming symbols of struggle for identitarian or authoritarian discourse. In this framework, customs and objects originally produced and mobilised by minority groups are repurposed to embody the aspirations of a majority in crisis. More broadly, the very notion of freedom – once associated with collective liberation – is reframed as an individual right to disobedience, aligned with a narrowly liberal political vision of struggle and at odds with the 20th-century tradition of egalitarian demands through music – notably, protest songs.

22 Matthew Anderson's article analyses the politicisation of hip-hop through two MAGA-affiliated songs – Bryson Gray's “Gun Tottin' Patriot” and Tom MacDonald's “Facts” – demonstrating how a genre historically linked to social critique can become a vehicle for nationalist and conservative discourse. Using a multimodal analysis of discourse, combined with Adam Krims' poetic theory of hip-hop, the author examines both musical content and socio-cultural context. After tracing the historical links between hip-hop and certain American presidents, he shows how the figure of Donald Trump – once lauded in rap as the incarnation of the American Dream and material success – has become a source of political polarisation. Anderson identifies a pivotal moment in a certain fringe of hip-hop, which redefined rap as a new expressive space for conservative patriots: Eminem's explicit rejection of his Trump-supporting fans in 2017, creating a symbolic void that was quickly filled by right-leaning artists. Decades of tension between social critique and celebration of individual success allowed the rap genre to be repurposed ideologically, mobilising its aesthetic and symbolic codes to assert an entrepreneurial, virile and now nationalist vision of success. The author argues that music contributes to the MAGA movement's existence as an autonomous cultural phenomenon, beyond its strictly partisan dimension, by transforming protest codes into nationalist symbols. Drawing on Ernesto Laclau's theory of populism, Anderson interprets this as a process of collective identity formation, contrasting progressive elites with “real Americans”. As both a tool of cultural distinction between loosely defined social groups and a vehicle for legitimising Donald Trump's key political slogans, rap is helping to construct a new national imaginary.

23 When viewed side by side, the two articles describe a similar dynamic of appropriation of musical forms historically associated with protest and minority values, turning them into instruments of reactionary identification in the service of power. In the Canadian case, Rogers and Franklin analyse the use of musical repertoires and sound codes of protest by mostly amateur artists, mobilised locally to legitimise a national identity based on a façade of multiculturalism. In Anderson's work, this reversal is more direct and mediatised: rappers with a large following turn music into an explicit vehicle for political confrontation, dominated by the rhetoric of weapons, whiteness and the defence of individual freedom. In both cases, music acts as a tool for community
cohesion and collective distinction, serving to restore values considered traditional. However, where Rogers and Franklin emphasise the reappropriation of minority struggles through a process of cultural extractivism, Anderson shows that the ideological reconfiguration of hip-hop this time comes from actors within the same musical universe, thus blurring the line between appropriation and internal redefinition of the genre in the service of a populist imaginary.

24

Finally, historian Elena Rovenko examines how classical music, especially the work of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, is instrumentalised and weaponised in state propaganda. Her meticulously documented portrayal of contemporary Russian culture first reveals a creative sphere (from literature to cinema, architecture, and theatre) subjected to rigorous control – of both aesthetic form and artistic technique. Within this framework, art and culture emerge as essential cogs in a conceptual apparatus designed to uphold “traditional values” and construct a distinct “Russianness” in opposition to a “collective West”. This political essentialisation of Russian culture, aiming to permeate every facet of daily life, is continually redefined through legislative texts and presidential decrees issued with remarkable frequency.

25

Within this landscape, classical music might first seem resistant to such essentialisation, instead offering an aesthetic counterpoint: on the one hand, the works of 18th- and 19th-century Russian composers, which make up nearly all of the concert repertoire, draw on forms and idioms common to all European countries; on the other hand, when they do contain Russian folk elements, these no longer register as such with contemporary audiences. The “Russification” of Russian composers thus results from a forced operation – a falsification of musical history (both art and traditional folk music, and their interrelations) and a tendentious reinterpretation of their works. The third section of Rovenko’s article situates Tchaikovsky’s renowned ballet *Swan Lake* within a political history of its reinterpretations from the Soviet period to today. These reinterpretations are two-fold, involving both a political manipulation of its compositional context – particularly in light of the composer’s biography – and a “modernisation” that adapts classical tradition to the standards of the entertainment industry, and then presents these adaptations as authentic formats, uniquely capable of eliciting popular identification and adherence among contemporary audiences.

26

Elena Rovenko thus brings to light a set of operations specific to the current Kremlin regime, particularly since the invasion of Crimea in 2014, which seems to have marked a turning point in the way the political power seeks to permeate all aspects of the symbolic life and imagination of Russian citizens. In doing so, she analyses a system of cultural control inherited from the Soviet period, but whose methods have been adapted to a contemporary context in which elements of popular culture (musical and literary folklore) have already been filtered through globalisation. By reminding us how culture remains a central element in political projects aimed at forging a collective identity – that is, forming a “people” (regardless of the image ascribed to the “people”) – the author emphasises that such operation is necessarily political. They act upon aesthetic forms which, while sufficiently malleable to allow their meaning to be manipulated, retain a degree of aesthetic resistance to these political rewritings. Otherwise, the authorities would not need to expend so much energy controlling artistic creation and heritage⁵⁷.

27

The question of the non-coincidence between artistic forms and political forms is also taken up in the interview with sociologist Gérôme Guibert, titled “Studying Popular
Music: Culture, Economics, Politics". Aesthetic positions certainly carry readily
perceptible social meanings, as demonstrated by cultural studies and the substantial
body of research on subcultures. Yet the diversity of actors, experiences and
relationships prevents any mechanical association of a given aesthetic with a particular
politics - exemplified, for instance, by the ambivalent play of punk and industrial music
with Nazi or fascist references. If political issues appear marginal in this interview,
conducted by Andrée Friaud and Maël Hamey Jakubowicz, it is because they arise only
after a trajectory that first retraces the gradual constitution of a discipline - popular
music studies - and the diversity and legitimacy of its subjects. As Guibert shows,
legitimacy - imbued as it is with issues of recognition and neglect, distinction and
disdain - tightly binds the epistemological stakes of this field of research to its social
dimension. The long-standing privilege granted to rock over pop, on the grounds of its
presumed proximity to Western classical music, so-called "art" music, is one of many
examples in which social visibility and epistemic legitimacy are inextricably
intertwined.

Epistemology and Politics

28

Even if we admit, as Frédéric Lordon suggests, that the territory of the right begins
with the acceptance, even slight, of the sovereignty of capital⁵⁸, and even accounting
for the growing fluidity of the political field, the contributions gathered in this issue
focus on objects whose placement on the right side of the political spectrum is hardly
in doubt. The articles presented here offer an initial empirical comparison of several
contexts – Canada, the United States, Russia, and France – which, while not providing
an exhaustive map, allow us to grasp the tension between political and cultural actions
rooted in specific national contexts and the transnational circulation of repertoires of
action, symbols, and values associated with right-wing movements. Whether embedded
in nationalist, authoritarian or populist enterprises, these case studies show how music
can contribute to the construction of political adherence by bringing together symbols
and collective imaginaries. Together, they outline an analysis of contemporary modes
of political and ideological legitimisation through music and sound.

29

This collective endeavour also prompted broader reflection on the position of
researchers studying politically sensitive subjects, which are often closely linked to
current events but sometimes contrary to their own beliefs. often closely tied to
current events and sometimes at odds with their own beliefs. Throughout the
preparation of this issue, we were confronted with multiple questions - not only as
academic coordinators but also as researchers facing a dual constraint: on the one
hand, the obligation to produce analyses that respect the deontological rules of our
profession, and on the other, the need to embrace the civic and moral dimension of the
critical studies submitted to us - what François Bédarida terms the "social
responsibility of the historian" [our translation]⁵⁹. While these two imperatives do not
oppose one another, they led us to adopt a constant reflexive stance, in line with the
recommendations of political scientist Martina Avanza, for whom reflexivity is a
necessary condition for the non-empathetic study of social groups whose values we do
not necessarily share⁶⁰. In the social sciences, understanding does not imply agreement,
and we maintain that it is possible to maintain an analytical and reflexive view of
political or symbolic worlds that are sometimes in stark contrast to the researcher's own values.

30 Furthermore, as public research and academic freedoms are prime targets of attacks by current or recent right-wing governments, researchers whose work focuses specifically on the relationships between power and forms of knowledge and/or creation must first overcome the epistemological obstacle posed by the sense of shock they experience in response to unprecedented attacks on academic knowledge and practices – attacks that add to the forms of social violence exercised in such a context by those in power against the gender, racial and class minorities mentioned at the beginning of this introduction. The attack on the legitimacy of situated knowledge thus seems to be spreading to all forms of knowledge that do not fit the approved political narrative. In such a context, where the researchers are immersed in the very phenomena they study, epistemological vigilance carries not only scientific and ethical significance, but also political weight. This is why we have had to forgo publishing certain articles whose subjects seemed to overwhelm their authors because of the immediacy and severity of the violence involved.

31 The question of temporality arises in a specific way: working on ongoing phenomena, “in the heat of the moment”, involves dealing with heterogeneous materials – media discourse, digital archives, objects circulating on social networks – and accepting that part of the analysis remains open and evolving. Recent historiographical and digital tools (such as the Internet Archive) certainly enrich these investigations into the hypercontemporary, but they do not eliminate the difficulty of analysing an object whose contours are redrawn as the investigation progresses⁶¹. Nevertheless, the question of sources, their reliability, and all the precautions related to what is known as the administration of evidence remains a necessary condition for scientific investigation.

32 However, far from the shock and paralysis that the current political climate might inspire, the emergence of a space for discussion is visible. The growing interest in the links between music and authoritarian politics, as evidenced by the *Sounds of Fascism* symposium (University of Bonn, 2025) and the *LaSiDO: La Politique en Musique* project coordinated by Justine Simon (IUT de Besançon), attests to the fruitfulness of this theme. Thinking about music and the right wing also means questioning the assumptions of our own cultural worlds: the idea, often implicit in France, that artistic creation “naturally” belongs to a progressive or left-wing ethos. By exploring the political uses of sound, this issue invites us to shift our perspective and conceive of art not as an ideologically univocal territory, but as a contested space where the boundaries between the social and the political are continually renegotiated.

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NOTES

1. PARMENTIER Florent and BRET Cyrille, “Avec Intervision 2025, la Russie lance son anti-Eurovision”, *The Conversation*, September 22, 2025.

2. "Address and answers to the press by Sergey Lavrov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, at a press conference dedicated to the Intervision international music contest", *Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation*, September 16, 2025 (https://mid.ru/fr/foreign_policy/news/2047268, accessed September 25, 2025).

3. VULETIC Dean, *Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest*, London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2018, p. 163-199.

4. SHAHBAZ Maryam, MUSTAFA Ghulam and NAWAB Sadia, "Indo-American Relations during Narendra Modi's Era: A Critical Analysis", *Global Foreign Policies Review*, vol. VII, n°. 4, 2024, p. 5-6.

5. DE SOUZA Rebecca and HUSSAIN Syed Ali, “‘Howdy Modi!’: Mediatisation, Hindutva, and long distance ethnonationalism”, *Journal of International and Intercultural Communication*, vol. 16, n°. 2, 2023, p. 144-146.

6. AUDI Amanda and QUEIROZ Danilo, “Em ano eleitoral, Marcha para Jesus é terreno político em disputa”, *Agência Pública*, May 30, 2024 (https://apublica.org/2024/05/em-ano-eleitoral-marcha-para-jesus-e-terreno-politico-em-disputa, accessed October 14, 2025).

7. BÖCSKEI Balázs and NÉMET Szilvi, “From Unknown Subculture to Political Mainstream: The American Alt-Right and the Hungarian Right”, *Interdisciplinary Journal of Populism*, n°. 3, 2022, p. 162-181; MORIESON Nicholas, “‘Hungary is the place to be right now’: Hungarian post-liberalism and its influence on American conservatives”, *Christianity World | Politics. Journal of Catholic Social Thought*, n°. 26, 2022, p. 151-183.

8. Derecha Fest, “DERECHA FEST | CÓRDOBA 2025 | COMPLETO | CON JAVIER MILEI”, YouTube, 04:08:28 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe2_aeQSIl4, accessed September 28, 2025). See also MAZZINI Martín, “El Lollapalooza de la derecha: una fiesta libertaria y popular”, *Anfibia*, October 7, 2024 (https://www.revistaanfibia.com/derecha-fest-una-fiesta-libertaria-y-popular, accessed October 29, 2025).

9. SAUVAGE Grégoire, “En France, un gala controversé déroule le tapis rouge à l’extrême droite israélienne”, *France 24*, November 11, 2024 (https://www.france24.com/fr/france/20241111-france-gala-controvers%3%A9-d%3%A9roule-tapis-rouge-extr%3AAme-droite-isra%3%A9lienne, accessed October 25, 2025).
10. KAZAKOV Vitaly, “Intervention: Russia’s bid to rival Eurovision song contest – but with more conservative values”, *The Conversation*, September 19, 2025; Parmentier and Bret, “Avec Intervision 2025, la Russie lance son anti-Eurovision”.

11. EFE, “Bolsonaro thanks evangelicals for support at huge religious event”, *Los Angeles Times*, June 21, 2019 (https://www.latimes.com/espanol/noticas-mas/articulo/2019-06-21/efe-4005705-15539795-20190621, accessed October 14, 2025).

12. GIANELLO Pedro, “‘La Derecha Fest’: a libertarian festival in Córdoba with strict security, double fencing and the closure of Javier Milei”, *Clarín*, July 22, 2025 (https://www.clarin.com/politica/derecha-fest-fiesta-libertaria-cordoba-estricta-seguridad-doble-vallado-cierre-javier-milei_0_5IrA7bpzoI.html, accessed September 27, 2025).

13. DEL SARTO Raffaella A., *Israel Under Siege: The Politics of Insecurity and the Rise of the Israeli Neo-Revisionist Right*, Washington DC, Georgetown University Press, 2017; VIDAL Dominique, « Israël: colonisation, brutalisation, radicalisation », *Confluences Méditerranée*, vol. 100, n°. 1, p. 41-52; HERMANN Tamar, “The Religious Zionist Sector at Bay”, *Religions*, vol. 13, n°. 2, 2022.

14. For a critical analysis of Puy du Fou, see BESSON Florian, DUCRET Pauline, LANCEREAU Guillaume and LARRÈRE Mathilde. *Le Puy du Faux. Enquête sur un parc qui déforme l'histoire*, Paris, Les Arènes, 2022; SANTACANA LÓPEZ Pablo, “Troubling performative heritage: Puy du Fou as ‘softcore historicity’”, *Arts, Heritage and Performative Politics*, NOMEIKAITE Laima and HALDRUP Michael (eds), Cheltenham, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2025; SANTACANA LÓPEZ Pablo, *Softcore Reenactments: Puy du Fou and the Identitarian Spatialization of the Past*, doctoral thesis, Bauhaus University Weimar, 2025b.

15. See the investigation by LEMAHIEU Thomas, “Pinard, saucisson et Michel Sardou: comment Pierre-Édouard Stérin veut faire main basse sur les fêtes ‘traditionnelles’”, *L'Humanité*, July 10, 2025 (https://www.humanite.fr/politique/extreme-droite/pinard-saucisson-et-michel-sardou-comment-pierre-edouard-sterin-veut-faire-main-basse-sur-les-fetes-traditionnelles, accessed October 30, 2025).

16. CAMUS Jean-Yves, “Une extrême droite sans filiation fasciste: les populismes xénophobes en Europe”, *Recherches Internationales*, 2001, vol. 65, n°. 3, p. 15-30.

17. FARIA CARVALHO Flaviane and ANDRADE DE OLIVEIRA Paiva Beatriz, “Brasil acima de tudo, Deus acima de todos: uma análise do discurso de posse do presidente Bolsonaro”, *Revista da Anpoll*, 30 April 2022, vol. 53, n°. 1, p. 215-235.

18. BROWN Wendy, *Les habits neufs de la politique mondiale: néolibéralisme et néo-conservatisme*, trans. Christine Vivier, Paris, Les Prairies ordinaires, 2007; ALLOUCH Annabelle, *Mérite*, Paris, Anamosa, 2021.

19. DE ORELLANA Pablo and MICHELSEN Nicholas, “Reactionary Internationalism: The Philosophy of the New Right”, *Review on International Studies*, vol. 45, n°. 5, 2019, p. 748-767; MICHELSEN Nicholas, DE ORELLANA Pablo and COSTA BURANELLI Filippo, “The reactionary internationale: the rise of the new right and the reconstruction on international society”, *International Relations*, vol. 39, n°.1, 2023, p. 3-29.

20. PALHETA Ugo, *La Nouvelle Internationale fasciste*, Paris, Textuel, 2022.

21. WORTH Owen, *Morbid Symptoms: The Global Rise of the Far-Right*, London, Zed Books, 2019; MULHALL Joe, *Drums in the Distance: Journeys into the Global Far Right*, New York, Society Institute, 2021.
22. AMABLE Bruno and PALOMBARINI Stefano, *L'illusion du bloc bourgeois: alliances sociales et avenir du modèle français*, new expanded edition, Paris, Raisons d'agir, 2018 [2017], p. 67-100.

23. BOB Clifford, *The Global Right Wing and the Clash of World Politics*, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2012; RYDGREN Jens (ed.), *The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right*, New York, Oxford University Press, 2018.

24. BOB, *The Global Right Wing and the Clash of World Politics*, p. 184-194.

25. INGLEHART Ronald and NORRIS Pippa, "Trump, Brexit, and the Rise of Populism: Economic Have-Nots and Cultural Backlash", SSRN Electronic Journal, preprint, 2016.

26. ALTER Karen J. and ZÜRN Michael, "Conceptualising backlash politics: Introduction to a special issue on backlash politics in comparison", *The British Journal of Politics and International Relations*, vol. 22, n°. 4, p. 563-584.

27. TIBERJ Vincent, "The politics of two axes: sociological variables, values and votes in France (1988-2007)", *Revue française de science politique*, vol. 62, n°. 1, 2012, p. 71-106.

28. TIBERJ Vincent, "For what it's worth: la droitisation 'par en bas' n'a pas eu lieu", *Sociologie*, vol. 14, n°. 1, 2023, p. 111-120.

29. SIMON Yannick, *Composer sous Vichy*, Lyon, Symétrie, 2009; CHIMÈNES Myriam and SIMON Yannick (eds), *La musique à Paris sous l'Occupation*, Paris, Fayard/Cité de la Musique, 2013; BROHM Jean-Marie and PETIT Laetitia, "La musique, un appareil idéologique d'État: l'Occupation nazie en France", *Topique*, vol. 2, n°. 146, 2019, p. 45-58.

30. GINOT-SLACIK Charlotte, *Musiques dans l'Italie fasciste (1922-1943)*, Paris, Fayard, 2019.

31. GILBERT Shirli, *Music in the Holocaust: Confronting Life in the Nazi Ghettos and Camps*, Oxford, Clarendon, 2005; GINER Bruno, *Survivre et mourir en musique dans les camps nazis*, Paris, Berg International, 2011; PETIT Élise, *Musique et politique en Allemagne, du IIIe Reich à l'aube de la guerre froide*, Paris, Presses universitaires Paris Sorbonne, 2018.

32. CONTRERAS ZUBILLAGA Igor (ed.), "Tant que les révolutions ressemblent à cela": l'avant-garde musicale sous Franco, Paris, Horizons d'attente, 2021.

33. AEDO JAVIER Rodríguez, "Exil, dénonciation et exotisme: la musique populaire chilienne et sa réception en Europe (1968-1989)", *Monde(s): histoire, espaces, relations*, vol. 2, n°. 8, 2015, p. 141-160.

34. BUCH Esteban, *Trauermarsch: l'Orchestre de Paris dans l'Argentine de la dictature*, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 2016.

35. CHERNAVSKY Analía, "The 'Dança da Terra Issue' (1943): Heitor Villa-Lobos and the Vargas Dictatorship", in BUCH Esteban, CONTRERAS ZUBILLAGA Igor and DENIZ SILVA Manuel (eds), *Composing for the State: Music in Twentieth-Century Dictatorships*, London, Routledge/Fondazione Cini, 2016, p. 32-50.

36. HUNTER JAMES Davison, *Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America*, New York, Basic Books, 1991; BONNET Alma-Pierre, JAMET-COUPÉ Denis and PASSARD Cédric, "Guerres culturelles, guerres de mots", *Mots: les langages du politique*, n°. 136, 2024, p. 9-21.

37. HEWISON Robert, *Culture and Consensus: England, Art and Politics Since 1940* [1995], new ed., London, Methuen, 1997; ROBIN William, *Industry: Bang on a Can and New Music in the Marketplace*, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2021; BERTRAND Mathilde, "Cultural Battles: Margaret Thatcher, the Greater London Council and the British Community Arts Movement", *Revue française de civilisation britannique*, vol. 26, n°. 3, 2021.
38. Since DICK HEBDIGE'S seminal work (Subculture: The Meaning of Style, London, Routledge, 1979), the concept of "subculture" has not only been the subject of extensive scholarly analysis, but has also faced critical scrutiny regarding its epistemic limits. See in particular NUZUM Eric, Parental Advisory: Music Censorship in America, New York, Perennial, 2001; JANISSE Kier-La and CORUPE Paul (eds), Satanic Panic: Pop-Cultural Paranoia in the 1980s, Toronto, Spectacular Optical, 2015.

39. COHEN Stanley, *Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers* [1972], 3rd ed., Abingdon, New York, Routledge, 2011. However, numerous studies have highlighted the limitations of the “moral panic” framework, particularly its tendency to oversimplify the political and cultural complexities of the phenomena it seeks to explain when circulated in journalistic discourse: see MCROBBIE Angela and THORNTON Sarah L., “Rethinking ‘Moral Panic’ for Multi-Mediated Social Worlds”, *The British Journal of Sociology*, vol. 46, n°. 4, 1995, p. 559-574, and NEVEU Erik, “L’approche constructiviste des ‘problèmes publics’: un aperçu des travaux anglo-saxons”, *Études de communication*, n°. 22, 1999, p. 41-58.

40. JONES Steve, “Ban(ned) in the USA: Popular Music and Censorship”, *Journal of Communication Inquiry*, vol. 15, n°. 1, 1991, p. 73-87; BLECHA Peter, *Taboo Tunes: A History of Banned Bands & Censored Songs*, San Francisco, Backbeat Books, 2004; GUMPLOWICZ Philippe, *Les résonances de l'ombre: musique et identités, de Wagner au jazz*, Paris, Fayard, 2012.

41. STEPHENS Randall J., *The Devil's Music: How Christians Inspired, Condemned, and Embraced Rock 'n' Roll*, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2018.

42. ROBIN, Industry: Bang on a Can and New Music in the Marketplace; see also OECD, *The Culture Fix: Creative People, Places and Industries*, report by Local Economic and Employment Development (LEED), Paris, OECD Publishing, 2022.

43. MÉTAIS-CHASTANIER Barbara, "Nouveau fascisme et Pop Contestation", *Agôn*, Points de vue series, 2015.

44. MAHOUDEAU Alex, *La panique woke: anatomie d'une offensive réactionnaire*, Paris, Textuel, 2022; SILHOL Guillaume and MAHOUDEAU Margot, "En rangs et en tribunes: une analyse d'interventions intellectuelles sur le 'wokisme' en France (2020-2023)", *Mots: les langages du politique*, n°. 136, 2024, p. 41-61.

45. DUPUIS-DÉRI Francis, *Panique à l'université: rectitude politique, wokes et autres menaces imaginaires*, Montreal, Lux, 2022; MURAT Laure, *Qui annule quoi?*, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 2022.

46. LOPEZ Louis-Valentin, "Donald Trump prend les rênes du Kennedy Center, qu'il juge trop 'woke'", *France Musique*, February 13, 2025, (https://www.radiofrance.fr/francemusique/donald-trump-prend-les-renes-du-kennedy-center-qu-il-juge-trop-woke-3956662, accessed October 17, 2025).

47. In 2024, several hundred artists took a stand against the cultural policy choices made by right-wing and far-right governments in several European countries: MAROUTSIS Ilias, "Prominent artists warn that Europe's culture is in crisis", *Creative Unites*, December 2, 2024 (https://creativesunite.eu/article/prominent-artists-warn-that-europe-s-culture-is-in-crisis, accessed October 17, 2025). See also, the same year: Le syndicat des musiques actuelles, "[Tribune] 500 artists mobilise to say no to the far right", *Les Inrockuptibles*, June 21, 2024 (https://www.lesinrocks.com/societe/
tribune-500-artistes-se-mobilisent-pour-dire-non-a-lextrème-droite-622194-21-06-2024, accessed October 17, 2025).

48. See, for example, PREDA Caterina, *Art and Politics Under Modern Dictatorships: A Comparison of Chile and Romania*, Cham, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.

49. THOMAS Jonathan, “Jean-Marie Le Pen et la SERP: le disque de musique au service d’une pratique politique”, *Volume*, vol. 14, n° 1, 2017; THOMAS Jonathan, *La propagande par le disque: Jean-Marie Le Pen, éditeur phonographique*, Paris, Éditions de l’EHESS, 2020.

50. PUJOLAS Marie, “Polémique: qui se cache derrière les masques des ‘Brigandes’?”, *France Info*, October 11, 2016 (https://www.franceinfo.fr/culture/musique/polemique-qui-se-cache-derrière-les-masques-des-brigandes_3365867.html, accessed October 15, 2025).

51. WALDMAN Paul, “Jason Aldean cashes in on the right-wing fantasy of violent retribution”, *The Washington Post*, July 20, 2023 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/07/20/jason-aldean-try-that-in-a-small-town-violent-fantasy, accessed October 18, 2025).

52. There is a wealth of academic research exploring the ties between metal scenes and far-right movements, but most of it focuses on specific subgenres rather than offering a comprehensive analysis. However, see: FISCHER Jillian, “White Nationalism is for Basement Dwelling Losers”: An Exploration of Far-Right Political Extremism in Heavy Metal Music, doctoral thesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2022. See also the “Musiques extremes” dossier, regularly updated by Mediapart (https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/culture-et-idees/dossier/musiques-extremes, accessed October 18, 2025).

53. COUTAGNE Gabriel, “Comment Oliver Anthony, chanteur anonyme de country, s’est hissé au sommet des charts américains”, *Le Monde*, August 22, 2023 (https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2023/08/22/comment-oliver-anthony-chanteur-anonyme-de-country-s-est-hisse-au-sommet-des-charts-americains_6186230_3210.html, accessed October 17, 2025).

54. “‘YMCA’, l’ancien hymne gay de Village People récupéré par Donald Trump”, *France Info*, 20 January 2025 (https://www.franceinfo.fr/culture/musique/y-m-c-a-l-ancien-hymne-gay-de-village-people-recupere-par-donald-trump_7025972.html, accessed October 17, 2025).

55. See BUCH Esteban, *La “Neuvième” de Beethoven: une histoire politique*, Paris, Gallimard, 1999.

56. DENIAU Jean-Philippe, “‘C’était un concert satanique’: deux militants de Civitas jugés pour avoir empêché un concert dans une église”, *France Inter*, March 13, 2024 (https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/podcasts/l-info-de-france-inter/les-doc-france-inter-du-merc-13-mars-6-5376537, accessed October 17, 2025); VILLAVERDE Maylen, “Des militants de l’extrême droite catholique font annuler un concert à Carnac”, *France 3 Bretagne*, May 14, 2023 (https://france3-regions.franceinfo.fr/bretagne/morbihan/vannes/des-militants-de-l-extreme-droite-catholique-font-annuler-un-concert-a-carnac-2773102.html, accessed October 17, 2025).

57. On this point, see the concept of “critical formalism” developed by Lydia GOEHR, in *The Quest for Voice: On Music, Politics, and the Limits of Philosophy: The 1997 Ernest Bloch Lectures*, Oxford University Press, 2002.
58. In this regard, the philosopher and economist Frédéric Lordon excludes certain social-democratic and social-liberal parties on the left, such as the French Socialist Party, but he does not really define the right, instead approaching it negatively, by contrast: "To be on the left means positioning oneself in a particular way in relation to capital - specifically, in a way that, having first asserted the idea of equality and true democracy, and having recognised that capital is a potential tyranny in which this idea stands no chance of becoming reality, necessarily concludes that one's politics must consist in rejecting the sovereignty of capital" [our translation from the original French]. (LORDON Frédéric, "La gauche ne peut pas mourir", *Le Monde diplomatique*, September 2014, p. 18-19).

59. BÉDARIDA François, *Histoire, critique et responsabilité*, Brussels, Complexe, 2003, p. 326.

60. AVANZA Martina, “Comment faire de l’ethnographie quand on n’aime pas ‘ses indigènes’? Une enquête au sein d’un mouvement xénophobe”, in BENSA Alban and FASSIN Didier (eds), *Les politiques de l’enquête*, Paris, La Découverte, 2008, p. 41-56.

61. On the difficulties of writing a history of the present – a history of what is “still there” – see Henry ROUSSO’S essential work, *La dernière catastrophe: l’histoire, le présent, le contemporain*, Paris, Gallimard, 2012.

ABSTRACTS

Building on scholarship exploring the relationship between music and politics in the 20th century, this issue seeks to examine their transformations in the world today. The four articles presented here explore distinct national contexts, marked by hypercontemporary dynamics and events such as the Covid-19 pandemic, Donald Trump’s political rise, the war in Ukraine and broader mechanisms of influence and propaganda in a globalised world. They analyse highly contrasting forms of political mobilisation through music, from collective and highly institutionalised manifestations to more individual and marginal expressions emerging from Do-It-Yourself (DIY) practices. Together, these contributions provide an overview of the diversity of political uses of music and sound events in a context of rapidly reconfiguring media spaces, visibility regimes and modes of engagement.

INDEX

**Keywords:** music and politics, right wing and extreme right wing, ideology, representations, propaganda, 21st Century
## AUTHORS

### JÚLIA DONLEY

Júlia Donley is a doctoral candidate and teaching and research fellow (ATER) in sociology at Sorbonne Nouvelle University - Paris 3, affiliated with the Centre for Research and Documentation on the Americas (CREDA, UMR 7227). Her dissertation, supervised by Denis Merklen and Esteban Buch, investigates the implementation of public-private partnerships in the cultural sector and their effects on the working conditions and professional representations of orchestral musicians in São Paulo. At CREDA, she has co-organized the sociology research seminar since 2022. She is also a co-founder of LEO – Laboratório de Estudos Orquestrais at the University of São Paulo (ECA-USP). A professional flutist, she holds a bachelor's and a master's degree in musical performance from Brazil.

### LAMBERT DOUSSON

Lambert Dousson is a professor in Humanities at the École nationale supérieure d'art et de design de Dijon. He holds an agrégation and a Ph.D. in Philosophy, and his research focuses on the relationship between music and violence, and on the status of subjectivity in 20th and 21st century conceptions of musical writing and listening. He is editor-in-chief of the journal *Transposition* with Sarah Benhaïm, and the author of two books: *Une manière de penser et de sentir: essai sur Pierre Boulez* (Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2017); "*La plus grande œuvre d'art pour le cosmos tout entier*". Stockhausen et le 11 septembre: essai sur la musique et la violence (MF, 2020). With Élise Marrou, he translated into French Lydia Goehr's *A Quest for Voice: On Music, Politics, and the Limits of Philosophy* (Politique de l'autonomie musicale: essais philosophiques, Cité de la musique-Philharmonie de Paris, 2016) and edited *Lydia Goehr, de l'autonomie musicale à l'expression* (Delatour France, 2020). He writes for the Cité de la Musique - Philharmonie de Paris and for the Musica Festival in Strasbourg.

### JASON JULLIOT

Holding a Ph.D. in Musicology, a French *agrégation* in Music, and several degrees from the Paris Conservatory (CNSMDP), Jason Julliot is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Rouen Normandy. After teaching for several years at that same university, at the École normale supérieure de Lyon, and at the École supérieure d'études cinématographiques in Paris (ESEC), he is now part of the research project "Music and Sound Representations of On-Screen Violence", funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR). His work focuses primarily on the relationship between film music and heavy metal from the 1970s to the present, the subject of his doctoral dissertation. He is the cofounder of Siméa (the Interdisciplinary Society for Mediation and Audiovisual Studies) and serves as editorial secretary of the journal *Émergences: son, musique et médias audiovisuels*. In parallel, he is also interested in the history of university policies and queer musicologies, which led him to cofound the research group Musi·queer in 2024.

## TRANSLATORS

### MAGGIE JONES