The New Guitarscape in Critical Theory, Cultural Practice and Musical Performance

Book excerpt: In The New Guitarscape, Kevin Dawe argues for a re-assessment of guitar studies in the light of more recent musical, social, cultural and technological developments that have taken place around the instrument. He presents a synthesis of previous work on the guitar, but also expands the terms by which the guitar might be studied, drawing from studies in science and technology, design theory, material culture, cognition, sensual culture, gender and sexuality, power and agency, ethnography (real and virtual) and globalization. Dawe presents the guitar as an instrument involved in an enormous variety of cultural interactions and political exchanges in many different contexts around the world.