Friday, August 21, 2009

Syllabus - Music and the Global Metropolis

This fall semester, I will be teaching a course at Colby College entitled "Music and the Global Metropolis." I thought it might be fun and productive to post the syllabus minus audio examples on Musicology / Matters and here, for commentary and public use. So please, feel free to use the syllabus as you like!

Music 197 A: Music and the Global Metropolis


________


Professor:
Kariann E. Goldschmitt
Lorimer Chapel 001

Lecture:
Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays
1:00PM – 2:15PM
150 Bixler Art and Music Center

Office Hours:
Wednesdays
10:30AM–12:30PM

Required Texts:
Thomas Turino, Music as Social Life: The Politics of Participation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008).
Mike Davis, Planet of Slums (New York: Verso, 2007).

Readings on Reserve in Bixler Library:
e-Reserves (ER)
Bixler Reserves (BR)

Course Description:

Metropolises bring together diverse groups of people in concentrated locations all over the world. Despite the dangers that these cities represent (violence, crime, and poverty), they also produce an astounding variety of musical innovations. This course is an exploration of the meetings of disparate musical cultures in major metropolises of the world. Throughout the semester, we will study six different major cities (New York, Mexico City, São Paulo, Paris, Tokyo, and Mumbai), the major musical developments to come from them, and the cultural conflicts and celebrations that emerge in contemporary urban life. We will discuss styles such as hip hop, punk, reggaeton, mariachi, nor-tec, dancehall, roots music, samba, j-pop, shibuya ke’i, karaoke, bhangra, filmi, “world music,” and electronic dance music, and how they relate to the urban environments where they were developed and where they continue to thrive.

Throughout the course, the professor will bring audio, visual and participatory examples that relate to the reading. Students are encouraged to do the same so long as they email the professor in advance.

Students will become familiar with the critical issues at stake to these musical communities through a variety of course readings, writing assignments, exams and the development of term paper. Class objectives include:

· increasing basic understanding of the relationship of music and geography;
· developing of critical reading and listening skills;
· understanding the diversity of musical practices in different places in the world;
· appreciating music as a site of conflict and celebration in present day urban policy;
· the development and revision of an original term-paper that meets the academic requirements of the course.


Course Expectations:

o Students are expected to do all reading for the course and have questions and comments prepared before class convenes. The easiest way to succeed is to take note of questions that arise as you engage with course materials and bring those concerns to class meetings.
o Students are expected to keep up with the listening on a regular basis. The musical examples for this course will be available through links on the course website (under “A/V examples”), often in the form of YouTube videos and streaming audio.
o All students with documented disabilities will be given special dispensations if they so require them. Please notify me during the first sessions of class.
o I am happy to answer questions and chat with you about your thoughts and ideas about this class. Please feel free to visit me during Office Hours. I am also available by appointment via email, text or phone and I maintain an open door policy with all students.


Grading and Assignments:

I. There will be two exams in this course: a midterm (worth 15% of your final grade) and a final (worth 20% of your final grade).
II. There will be three short written assignments designed to help you work through recurring issues in the course and help you develop your term paper: one reading response (1-2 pages in length) worth 5%, one listening response related to your term paper (2-3 pages) worth 5%, and a final paper proposal outlining your repertoire / locale of choice, your line of inquiry, and how it relates to the class (10%). I will discuss the details of writing assignments throughout the term. Keep copies of all papers in the case my copy goes astray. Late papers result in a grade deduction of one-third a grade every day they are late.
III. There will be one term paper (7-10 pages), worth 25% of your final grade. You must show evidence of incorporating the professor’s comments on your writing assignments into the final paper to get a good grade.
IV. Due to privacy, I only discuss grades in person. Please make an appointment or visit my office hours if you wish to inquire about your performance.


Grading Breakdown:

15% Midterm Exam
20% Final Exam
20% Writing Assignments
25% Term Paper
20% Participation


Schedule of Class Meetings



Unit 1: Conceptual Foundations to Music and Urban Geography

[Music] / [Global] / [Metropolis]

• Wk 1: September 9 Introduction to Music and Globalization
Bohlman, Philip V. “Colonial Musics, Post-colonial Worlds, and the Globalization of World Music.” In World Music: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. ER
Turino, Thomas. “Introduction: Why Music Matters.” In Music as Social Life: The Politics of Participation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.

• Wk 1: September 11 Urban Studies and Musical Participation
Davis, Mike. “Urban Climactic.” In Planet of Slums. New York: Verso, 2007.
Turino, Thomas. “Participatory and Presentational Performance.” In Music as Social Life.

Urban Geography, Community, and Divisions

• Wk 2: September 14 Musical Communities and Music as Culture
Turino, Thomas. “Habits of the Self, Identity, and Culture .” In Music as Social Life.

• Wk 2: September 16 Music Technology and Urbanism
Krims, Adam. “Introduction.” In Music and Urban Geography. New York: Routledge, 2007. ER
Turino, Thomas. “The Recording Fields: High Fidelity and Studio Audio Art.” In Music as Social Life.

• Wk 2: September 18 Cultural Impact of Post-Fordism and Urban Renewal
Davis, Mike. “The Prevalence of Slums.” In Planet of Slums.
OPTIONAL
Abrahamson, Mark. “Introduction, Background, and Preview.” In Global Cities. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. ER

Unit 2: New York City, United States

The Five Boroughs and the ’70s and early ’80s: Hip Hop, Punk, and Club Culture

• Wk 3: September 21 Downtown to Uptown: The Development and Spread of Disco
Lawrence, Tim. “Pollination: The Rise of the Downtown Party Network.” In Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970-1979. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003. ER
OPTIONAL
Lawrence, Tim. “Recognition: The Crystallization of a Sound.” In Love Saves the Day. ER

• Wk 3: September 23 Urban Grit and Noise: Punk and DIY
Polk O’Meara, Caroline. “The Bush Tetras, ‘Too Many Creeps,’ and New York City.” American Music 25 (2007): 193-215. ER

• Wk 3: September 25 Hip-Hop and the Bronx
** Writing Assignment 1: Reading Response Due in Class (5% of Final Grade)
Chang, Jeff. “Necropolis: The Bronx and the Politics of Abandonment.” In Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005. ER

The City, Migration, and Mobility

• September 28 No Class – Yom Kippur

• Wk 4 TBA Latinos and Música Negra I: Nuyorican Soul and Salsa
Knights, Vanessa. “Nostalgia and the Negotiation of Dislocated Identities : Puerto Rican Boleros in New York and Nuyorican Poetry.” In Postnational Musical Identities: Cultural Production, Distribution and Consumption in a Globalized Scenario. Edited Ignácio Corona and Alejandro L. Madrid. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007. ER
OPTIONAL
García, David F. “Embodying Music / Disciplining Dance: The Mambo Body in Havana and New York City.” In Ballroom, Boogie, Shimmy Sham, Shake: A Social and Popular Dance Reader. Edited by Julie Malnig. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2009. ER

• Wk 4: September 30 Latinos and Música Negra II: Reggaetón
Marshall, Wayne. “Dem Bow, Dembow, Dembo: Translation and Transnation in Reggaeton.” Lied und populäre Kultur / Song and Popular Culture: Jahrbuch des Deutschen Volksliedarchivs 53 (2008): 131-51. ER
OPTIONAL
Marshall, Wayne. “From Música Negra to Reggaeton Latino: The Cultural Politics of Nation, Migration, and Commercialization.” In Reggaeton. Edited by Raquel Z. Rivera, Wayne Marshall, and Deborah Pacini Hernandez. Durham: Duke University Press, 2009. BR

• Wk 4: October 2 Urban Folk Music and Class Mobility
Turino, Thomas. “Old Time Music and Dance.” In Music as Social Life: the Politics of Participation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.

Unit 3: Mexico City: The Biggest City in the Western Hemisphere

Intranational Musical Genres: Mariachi and Cumbia

• Wk 5: October 5 Mexico City and the World
Davis, Mike. “Treason of the State” and “SAPing the Third World.” In Planet of Slums.

• Wk 5: October 7 Cultural Industry and Mariachi
Sheehy, Daniel E. “Mexico.” In Handbook of Latin American Music. 2d Edition. Edited by Dale A. Olson and Daniel E. Sheehy. New York: Routledge, 2007. ER

• Wk 5: October 9 Transnational Hybrids: Cumbia and Tecno-Cumbia
** Writing Assignment 2, Listening Response Due in Class (5% of Final Grade)
García Canclini, Néstor. “Mexico: Cultural Globalization in a Disintegrating City.” American Ethnologist 22 (November 1995): 743-755. ER

Transnational Music of Mexico: Rock en Español, Nor-tec, World Music of Mexico

• Wk 6: October 12 No Class for Fall Break

• Wk 6: October 14 Rock en Español and Border Music
Kun, Josh. “Rock's Reconquista.” In Audiotopia: Music, Race, and America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. ER
Dillon, Hope. "Café Tacuba: Forging a New Mexican Identity." Journal of American Culture 20 (1997): 75-83 ER

• Wk 6: October 16 Mexican World Music
Gonzales Aktories, Susana. “Lila Downs: The Voice of a Butterfly.” Lied und Populäre Kultur / Song and Popular Culture: Jahrbuch des Deutschen Volksliedarchivs 53 (2008): 153-166. ER

Unit 4: São Paulo, Brazil: Urban Jungle and Folk Music Revivalism

A City of Division and Peripheries
• Wk 7: October 19 São Paulo and Spatial Segregation
Caldeira, Teresa P.R. “São Paulo: Three Patterns of Spatial Segregation.” In City of Walls: Crime, Segregation and Citizenship in São Paulo. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. ER
Davis, Mike. “Illusions of Self-Help.” In Planet of Slums.

• Wk 7: October 21 Developmentalism and Regional Folk Music Reinvention
Davis, Mike. “Haussman in the Tropics.” In Planet of Slums.
OPTIONAL
Caldeira, Teresa P.R. “The Increase in Violence.” In City of Walls: Crime, Segregation and Citizenship in São Paulo. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. BR

• Wk 7: October 23 Drum ‘n’ Bass in the São Paulo Periphery
Fontanari, Ivan Paulo de Paris. “Globalizing the Periphery: Transnational Extensions and Local Tensions in an Global/Underground Music Scene in Brazil.” Echo: A Music-Centered Journal 8 (Fall 2006). ER

Immigration and Transnational Identification

• Wk 8: October 26 Brazilian Cultural Capital
Ortiz, Renato. “Legitimacy and Life-Style.” In Latin American Cultural Studies Reader (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 474-497. ER

• Wk 8: October 28 Regional and Folk Music and Cannibalist Aesthetics
Olson, Dale A. “Music of Immigrant Groups.” In Handbook of Latin American Music. 2d Edition. Edited by Dale A. Olson and Daniel E. Sheehy. New York: Routledge, 2007. BR

• Wk 8: October 30 Brazilian Hip-Hop
** Term Paper Proposal Due in Class (10 percent of Final Grade) **
Pardue, Derek. “Hip Hop as Pedagogy: A Look into ‘Heaven’ and ‘Soul’ in São Paulo, Brazil,” Anthropological Quarterly 80 (2007): 673-709. ER

Unit 5 Paris, France as Cosmopolis

Chanson, Parisian Electronic Dance Music and Hip-Hop
• Wk 9: November 1 Parisian Chanson and the Legacy of Colonialism
Looseley, David L. “Chanson as National Myth: The Authenticity Debate.” In Popular Music in Contemporary France: Authenticity, Politics, Debate. New York: Berg, 2003. ER

• Wk 9: November 3 Parisian Hip-Hop and Electronic Dance Music
Hawkins, Peter. “MC Solaar: A Gardiner of Words.” Chanson: The French Singer-Songwriter From Aristide Bruant to the Present Day. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000. ER
Prévos, André J. M. “Postcolonial Popular Music in France: Rap Music and Hip-Hop Culture in the 1980s and 1990s.” In Global Noise: Rap and Hip-Hop Outside the USA. Edited by Tony Mitchell. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2002. BR

• Wk 9: November 5 Midterm Exam (15 percent of Final Grade)

Unit 6 Mumbai, India

Film Music Producer

• Wk 10: November 9 Mumbai as Cultural Producer
Davis, Mike. “Slum Ecology.” In Planet of Slums..
Neuwirth, Robert. “Mumbai: Squatter Class Structure.” In Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, A New Urban World. New York: Routledge, 2006. ER

• Wk 10: November 11 History of Bollywood and Film Music
Sen, Biswarup. “The Sounds of Modernity: The Evolution of Bollywood Film Song.” In Global Bollywood : Travels of Hindi Song and Dance. Edited by Sangita Gopal, Sujata Moorti. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008. ER

• Wk 10: TBA Contemporary Bollywood and NRI Culture

North Indian Classical Music, Light Classical and Popular Music

• Wk 11: November 16 Bollywood and Classical Music
Booth, Greg. “Pandits in the Movies: Contesting the Identity of Hindustani Classical Music and Musicians in the Hindi Popular Cinema.” Asian Music (2005): 60-86. ER

• Wk 11: November 18 Non-Cinematic Popular Music in India
Manuel, Peter. “Popular Music in India: 1901-1986.” Popular Music 7 (1988): 157-176. ER

• Wk 11: November 20 No Class!

• Wk 12: November 23 Light Classical Music
** Term Papers (25 percent of Final Grade) Due!
Manuel, Peter. “Cassettes and the Modern Ghazal.” In Cassette Culture: Popular Music and Technology in North India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. ER

Unit 7 Tokyo, Japan: The "Postmodern" City

Post World War II Development, J-Pop, Karaoke, Shibuya Ke’i

• Wk 13: November 30 Tokyo Post-WWII
Atkins, E. Taylor. “Bop, Funk, Junk, and That Old Democracy Boogie: The Jazz Tribes of Postwar Japan.” In Blue Nippon: Authenticating Jazz in Japan. Durham: Duke University Press, 2001. BR

• Wk 13: December 2 Contemporary Tokyo, J-Pop and Karaoke
Shimatachi, Hiro R. “A Karaoke Perspective on International Relations.” In Japan Pop! Inside the World of Japanese Pop Culture. Edited by Timothy J. Craig. 2000. ER

• Wk 13: December 4 J-Pop and Shebuya Ke’i
Toth, Csabah. “J-Pop and Performances of Young Female Identity.” Young 16 (2008): 111-129. ER

Hip Hop, Video Game Music, and Cosplay

• Wk 14: December 7 Japanese Hip-Hop
Condry, Ian. “A History of Japanese Hip Hop: Street Dance, Club Scene, Pop Market.” In Global Noise: Rap and Hip-Hop Outside the USA. Edited by Tony Mitchell. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2002. ER
OPTIONAL
Condry, Ian. Hip-Hop Japan: Rap and the Paths of Cultural Globalization. Durham: Duke University Press, 2006. BR

• Wk 14: December 9 Contemporary Japanese Popular Music
Mattar, Yasser. “Miso Soup for the Ears: Contemporary Japanese Popular Music and its Relation to the Genres Familiar to the Anglophonic Audience.” Popular Music and Society 31 (2008): 113-123.

• Wk 14: December 11 Video Game Music and Cosplay

Final Exam TBA!