|
Description
In this course we will work to develop our capacities as critical writers and readers by engaging the question: “what is a voice?” To do this, we will move across the domains of politics (“voice of the people”), linguistics (“spoken voice”), psychology (“individual voice”), creativity (“find your voice”), sound (“tone of voice”), the body (“vocal chords and voice box”), technology (“the recorded voice”), and the sacred (“voice of God”). Ultimately, we will cultivate through writing and discussion a semester- long call and response via the diverse meanings and identities attributed to the voice across a range of cultural and historical locations. How do these diverse formulations resonate and speak with one another, and what might their connections reveal about how we understand ourselves and our world? Our course materials will include works by linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, composer Pauline Oliveros, the poet Ovid, sociologist W.E.B Du Bois, novelist Tommy Orange, philosopher Maladan Dolar, folk tales collected by the Brothers Grim, the spiritual texts of Hazrat Inayat Kahn, the blues music of Ma Rainey, among many others. Thematically, we will frequently consider the ways that the voice transgress the borders of metaphor and material fact, shaping our sense of both the individual and the collective. Throughout this course students will develop techniques for critical reading, writing, and listening, as we discuss materials which present and theorize the identity and meaning of the voice, including examples from music, religious studies, poetry, and philosophy. Students will analyze, synthesize, and compare these multiple perspectives in weekly writing assignments and class discussions and develop strategies for mobilizing diverse forms of evidence in support of their original arguments.
|
Class Number
1496
Credits
3
|
|
Description
Experimentalism Unbound: Hearing the Noises beyond Sun Ra and John Cage Following the recent centennial celebrations of Sun Ra and John Cage, this course takes up the music and thought of both figures as pathways to three interlocking issues central to contemporary musical practice: the roles of improvisation and performance; the affordances of technology and circuits of mediation; and the articulation of musical meaning with matters of race and gender. Moving across the borders of discipline and genre, course materials will serve to anchor and amplify our inquiry, being drawn from the fields of musicology, philosophy, film studies, and social history, among others, as well as the practices of jazz, experimental music, electronic dance music, and Jamaican popular musics. Our weekly lectures, readings, listening exercises, and writing assignments will ultimately equip students to undertake final research projects which critically extend and apply the questions and themes raised in the course.
|
Class Number
2289
Credits
3
|
|
Description
This course follows migrations both forced and voluntary from Africa across trade routes to the Caribbean and Brazil as a frame for examining musics traditional and popular. In addition to examining these specific musics and musical instruments we will consider how musics from the Afro- Caribbean and Afro-Brazilian experiences influence Latin and South America and the Untied States. This course emphasizes selected ethnographic reading, seminar discussion, individual ethnographic experiences, and the chance for students to connect knowledge from the seminar to real world performances and musicians.
|
Class Number
1628
Credits
3
|
|
Description
This course engages jazz and blues traditions on three interrelated fronts: as a set of historically situated practices emergent within the context of the African diaspora; as critical strategies of resistance, collectivity, and self definition; and as dynamic systems of sonic signification, meaning, and value. Lectures, readings, discussion, and critical listening will introduce students to the historical contexts, soundscapes, and discourses of jazz and blues, as well as the musical and social structures at work in their creation and reception. Throughout the semester we will critically consider the writings of musicians, historians, ethnomusicologists, and critics, as well as musical recordings, filmed performances, and documentary films. Through this students will synthesize foundational theories and concepts relating to the study of music, race, gender, and diaspora; cultivate their skills as critical listeners and musical analysts; and will integrate these capacities within a final project due at the end of the semester.
|
Class Number
1651
Credits
3
|
