Elizabeth Margulis - "Transported: The Everyday Magic of Musical Daydreams" - Lawrence Zbikowski

Elizabeth Margulis will discuss Transported: The Everyday Magic of Musical Daydreams. She will be joined in conversation by Lawrence Zbikowski. A Q&A and signing will follow the discussion. About the book: Reliving past heartbreak. Picturing a serene future. Imagining a fantastical scene. Across genres, music has an uncanny ability to carry us into distinct inner worlds. In Transported, acclaimed music cognition researcher Elizabeth Margulis explores the phenomenon of musical daydreams--the vivid, spontaneous, emotionally charged images, stories, and memories we lapse into while listening to music--and argues that these everyday reveries offer a powerful and underappreciated window into how we think, feel, and connect. Combining cutting-edge neuroscience, psychology, ethnography, and revelations from her own teaching and pathbreaking research, Margulis shows not only that musical imaginings are widespread and meaningful--but also that daydreams which seem deeply personal are often widely shared. Music can alleviate anxiety, ignite creativity, and foster connection in our increasingly fragmented era. At a time when attention is perpetually under siege, Transported makes a powerful case for music as one of the last spaces where the mind is still free to wander--and reminds us that these wanderings are more meaningful and more important to our individual and collective well-being than we've ever realized. About the author: Elizabeth Margulis is Professor and Director of the Music Cognition Lab at Princeton University. She was trained as a pianist before turning to musicology and cognitive science. Her previous scholarly books have won prizes from the Society for Music Theory, the American Musicological Society, and the American Society for Composers, Authors and Publishers, and been translated into seven languages. Her research has been featured in outlets ranging from NPR’s All Things Considered to the BBC, and funded by multiple grants from the National Science Foundation. Transported is her first book for general audiences. About the interlocutor: Lawrence Zbikowski is Addie Clark Harding Professor in the Department of Music and the College at University of Chicago. His most recent book Foundations of Musical Grammar (Oxford University Press) builds on research on fundamental aspects of human communication to explore the basis for the construction of meaningful musical utterances. Reliving past heartbreak. Picturing a serene future. Imagining a fantastical scene. Across genres, music has an uncanny ability to carry us into distinct inner worlds. In Transported, acclaimed music cognition researcher Elizabeth Margulis explores the phenomenon of ...