Lucas Auradniczek

Research and Teaching Interests

• Music and Society (esp. Semiotics & Culture, World-Relation Theory)
• Musical Semiotics and Meaning-Constitution with a Focus on Popular Music
• Qualitative Music Education Research and Participatory Music Formats

Academic Career
04/2026–07/2026 Research Assistant
University of Erfurt, Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies

07/2025– Research Project Associate
Stella Vorarlberg Private University of Music

01/2025– Doctoral Fellow of the University of Erfurt
University of Erfurt, Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies

04/2023–04/2024 Student Research Assistant
Justus Liebig University Giessen, Research & Science Communication Division

03/2023–06/2023 and 03/2024–06/2024 Musicological Editor
Deutscher Musikrat gGmbH

10/2020–02/2024 M.A. Applied Musicology (Grade 0.8, distinction)
Justus Liebig University Giessen

10/2018–04/2024 Student Research Assistant
Justus Liebig University Giessen, Institute for Musicology and Music Education
For the chairs of Music Education and Historical Musicology, as well as the Media Library and International Office

10/2015–09/2020 B.A. Music Education (Grade 1.6, very good)
Justus Liebig University Giessen

"Every Day Is Exactly the Same" – Musical Semiosis, World-Relations, and the Meaning of Estrangement in Popular Song

Music means something. It connects us to concepts, memories, and worlds that exceed mere sound and does so in a way that can be explained neither fully by its material nor by its social embeddedness alone. But how does this meaning arise? And what does it reveal about our relation to the world?

This dissertation project develops a theory of musical meaning-constitution that approaches these questions from the ground up. The starting point is the observation that music is meaningful in qualitatively different ways: it can refer explicitly to the world, through conventions, genres, and texts; it can bodily and iconically co-constitute world-relations, by folding movement, emotion, and cognition into one another; and it can, in the very act of perception, perform an originary form of world-constitution that precedes any explicit meaning.

These three semiotic modes — music about the world, music towards the world, music as world — form the structure of the project. Theoretically, it draws on the sign theory of Charles Sanders Peirce, and in particular his concept of abduction: the rule-constructing inference made under conditions of irritation. In this originary experience of estrangement lies the suspected condition: meaning arises where the perceived first becomes strange, before it can be translated into a sign.

Hartmut Rosa's sociology of world-relations serves as an epistemological guide throughout. His distinction between resonance and alienation as qualities of relation provides the conceptual framework within which the semiotic processes are situated. Popular music stands at the centre of the investigation because it functions as a particularly semiotically dense dispositive: it operates simultaneously on sonic, textual, gestural, and medial levels, and thereby makes its own sign-character unusually visible. Moreover, it has so far received little attention within this theoretical framework.

Edited volume

1. [forthcoming] Resonant Self–World Relations in Ancient and Modern Socio-Religious Practices: Opening a Field of Research, hg. von Elisabeth Begemann, Ursula Gärtner, Stephan Moebius, Anna-Katharina Rieger, Hartmut Rosa, Jörg Rüpke, Wolfgang Spickermann. In Kooperation mit Lucas Auradniczek, J. William Santos, João Tziminadis. Berlin: De Gruyter.

Articles in edited volumes and journals [blind peer-reviewed]

1. Auradniczek, Lucas [forthcoming]: “Music as Self, as Other, as World. On the Uses of Peircean Semiotics for Understanding Musical Representation and Meaning” In: Resonant Self–World Relations in Ancient and Modern Socio-Religious Practices: Opening a Field of Research, hg. von Elisabeth Begemann, Ursula Gärtner, Stephan Moebius, Anna-Katharina Rieger, Hartmut Rosa, Jörg Rüpke, Wolfgang Spickermann. In Kooperation mit Lucas Auradniczek, J. William Santos, João Tziminadis. Berlin: De Gruyter.
2. Auradniczek, Lucas; Döller, Marcus; Fazio-Vargas, Daniela; Pettenkofer, Andreas; Vinzent, Marcus [forthcoming]: “Mediation Through Signs” In: Resonant Self–World Relations in Ancient and Modern Socio-Religious Practices: Opening a Field of Research, hg. von Elisabeth Begemann, Ursula Gärtner, Stephan Moebius, Anna-Katharina Rieger, Hartmut Rosa, Jörg Rüpke, Wolfgang Spickermann. In Kooperation mit Lucas Auradniczek, J. William Santos, João Tziminadis. Berlin: De Gruyter.
3. Auradniczek, L, Wilde, B. & Schneider-Binkl, S. (2026): „Musikalische Bildung, ästhetische Erfahrungen und politische Bildung: Verbindungslinien am Beispiel einer Jazz-Oper mit Holocaust-Thematik“ In: Perspektiven verbinden - Schnittmengen, Synergien und Abgrenzungslinien von politischer und kultureller Bildung [Sammelband der Gesellschaft für politische Jugend- und Erwachsenenbildung], hg, von T. Bechtel, S. Göhmann & B. Vajen (Hrsg.). Frankfurt am Main: Wochenschau Verlag
4. Auradniczek, Lucas (2024): „Populäre Musik und Genozide. Musikpädagogische Chancen in der Erinnerungsarbeit am Beispiel des Songs Holy Mountains der Metal-Band »System Of A Down« (2005)” In: Erinnerungskulturen und Demokratiebildung : interdisziplinäre musikpädagogische Perspektiven, hg. von Sabine Schneider-Binkl. Augsburg: Wißner Musikbuch, S. 93-102.

Posters

1. Schneider-Binkl, Sabine; Achhorner, Bernhard; Auradniczek, Lucas; Bosch Sanfélix, Mercé. (2026): »Mit-Tanzen« Live observations Interviews Video-Stimulated Recall Interviews Fostering participation through music and movement experiences: how can inclusive dance projects contribute to social cohesion? 8.-11.04.2026. 33rd EAS Conference Wien.
2. Schneider-Binkl, S.; Immerz, A.; Auradniczek, L.; Lothwesen, H.; Niklosz, M. (2023): Zusammenhänge von stimmlichem Selbstkonzept und Identitätsentwicklung im Professionalisierungsprozess von Lehramtsstudierenden.Tagung „Lehrkräfteprofessionalisierung: Facetten, Förderung und zukünftige Herausforderungen“. 23. – 24.03.2023, Bergische Universität Wuppertal.
3. Schneider-Binkl, S.; Immerz, A.; Auradniczek, L.; Keilhofer, M. & Lothwesen, H. (2022): Identitätsentwicklung und Selbstkonzept bei Lehramtsstudierenden am Beispiel Stimme. Jahrestagung des Arbeitskreises Musikpädagogische Forschung (AMPF) vom 21. – 23.09.2022 an der Universität Augsburg.

• 07/01/2027                “We’re Free”: Word-Music Relationships and the Dialectics of Liberty in System of a Down’s “Holy Mountains”,  2027 MLA Convention, Los Angeles.

• 10/07/2026                „Every Day is Exactly the Same” Musical Semiosis, World-Relations and the  Meaning of Estrangement in Popular Song. 11. IASPM D-A-CH Collegium Musicum Populare, Salzburg.

• 31/10/2025                Performativität und soziale Räume. (Theoretische) Perspektiven auf das Format ‘Mit-Tanzen’. Symposium “Gesellschaftlicher Zusammenhalt durch Musik, Bewegung und Tanz”, Trossingen.

• 20/10/2025                Kommentar zu Volkskörper: Performing the Austrian „Hoamat“ in Popular Music. Tagung Indifference. Hostility, Disgust: The Ambiguity of Heimat”, Graz.

• 25/07/2025                Populäre Musik und Entfremdung. Forschung im Kontext der Weltbeziehungssoziologie nach Hartmut Rosa. 10. IASPM D-A-CH Collegium Musicum Populare, Paderborn.

• 15/03/2024                (mit Sabine Schneider-Binkl) Musikalische Bildung, ästhetische Erfahrungen und politische Bildung: Verbindungslinien am Beispiel einer Jazz-Oper mit Holocaust-Thematik. GPJE-Tagung, Bremen. 

• 07/11/2023                Chair der Podiumsdiskussion: Dear Erich. History and Memory in Music. Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven. Gießen.

• 13/01/2023                       (mit Sabine Schneider-Binkl) Vocal Self-Concept and Identity Development of Student Teachers, Pedagogic Research in Music Education, Leeds (online).