2956-4107 Discursive Power: On Canon, Language, and Music as Dispositif Ris Valentin author University of Cologne, Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany Correspondence to: Valentin Ris 31 07 2019 Numer 41 (2/2019) 2019 5 22 Copyright © 2019 2019 <p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: justify;">This essay aims to interconnect the aspects of canon, cultural musicology, music and language with the systematic category of </span><em style="text-align: justify;">dispositif</em><span style="text-align: justify;">. In a short overview on the disciplinary canon debate, the essay describes the idea of a musical canon and questions its methodological status in musicology. The conclusion is that (aesthetic) value judgements are to be rejected as scientific (consequently rational or intersubjectively reasonable) selection criteria. 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