Music, Art, Film and TV - Syllabus

Sociologyindex, Sociology Books 2009, Sociology of Music, Art, Film and TV

GHIS 5131 Poetry and Protest: Local Cultural Identities in a Global World - Fall 2004. New School University - Eiko Ikegami
Arts, poetry, and cultural practices often express sentiments of protest. The term poetry is used as a metaphor for various forms of aesthetic practices manifested in such forms as fiction, stories, poetry, performing arts, music, and fashion. Poetry can be a form of expressing protest in a variety of ways; direct expressions of political contention are only one way of connecting the dimensions of aesthetics and politics. Consequently, this seminar explores the dynamic relationships between poetry and politics from a variety of sociological viewpoints. Drawing from cases in various areas such as East India, Latin America, the Middle East, and Europe, this course explores the dynamics of forming local cultural identities expressed in the medium of popular cultural practices and aesthetics against the contexts of global and regional cultural intersections. The focus of our exploration lies in the dynamic cultural interactions between local and global in the formation of identities.

SOCIOLOGY OF THE ARTS - Emory University - Soc 561; Spring 2005
Sociological consideration of the arts has a long history. It extends back to the works of such classical writers as Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Georg Simmel and weaves its way to contemporary work by such scholars as Paul DiMaggio, Wendy Griswold, and Tia DeNora. In this advanced seminar, we seek a purchase on this literature by attending to a number of themes and exemplar works within these themes. As a result, we will examine theoretical traditions associated with, among others, Pierre Bourdieu and Theodor Adorno, and we will explore such topics as artistic careers, cultural capital, and the globalization of the arts. 

Soc 71: Sociology of popular music. Prof. Dipannita Basu dbasu@pitzer.edu
This course concentrates on primarily reggae, dancehall, hip-hop and dance music (house to UK underground garage). These genres provide the sonic prism through which to examine: the societal conditions in which music emerges; authenticity and appropriation (how popular music thrives on borrowing customizing and reinterpreting other people's cultural property); the representation/production and consumption of music (i.e. the media and music industry), and the political and social implications of popular music (gender, race, globalization).

The Sociology of Music - Graduate Institute of Musicology, National Taiwan University - gim.ntu.edu.tw/english.htm
Instructor - GJen-yen Chen
Semester - GSpring 2007
Course description
This course explores music and its interactions with human society. We shall consider the ways in which music not only reflects social structures, identities, and ideologies, but actively helps to construct them. A basic premise of the course is the intimate dialectical relationship between musical sound and social meaning, and we face the challenge not only of formulating this relationship in theoretical terms but also of demonstrating it through empirical evidence. Our discussions of the various aspects of the music-society link therefore will not neglect the analysis of the style of actual musical examples! Because of your professor’s particular research specialization, many of these examples will come from the tradition of 18th-century European art music (“art music” is a formal way of referring to what more commonly is called “classical music”). However, the basic principles of the sociology of music with which we will become familiar this semester can be applied to a broad range of musical repertoires, and you should keep this in mind as you select the topics for your semester research projects.

Prerequisites
As mentioned above, the consideration of musical style is an important element of this course, and therefore it is highly recommended that you have both an ability to read Western music notation as well as some knowledge of basic musical-theoretical concepts, such as mode, scale, dominant, tonic, and tonality. Also, you should feel fairly comfortable listening to and speaking, reading, and writing in English. (Because of the prominence of German scholarship in the field of sociology, many of our readings are of texts written originally in German. For anyone who is interested, I would like to offer an informal course in German reading in which we will study some of these original texts. Also, I am currently involved in a music-sociological project involving the examination of documents in German, and would be happy to hire one of you as an assistant if you have moderate ability in the language.)

Schedule of Class Meetings

8 Mar Overview of the Sociology of Music

Reading: John Shepherd, “Sociology of Music,” Grove Music Online

database (available through the databases link of NTU Library’s website)

15 Mar Music and Empirical Sociology

Reading: Tia Denora, “Formulating questions – the ‘music and society’

nexus,” from Music in Everyday Life

Listening: Georges Bizet, “Habañera” from Carmen; Aaron Copland,

“Fanfare for the Common Man”; Franz Schubert, Impromptu in G-flat

major; Oasis, “Cigarettes and Alcohol”

22 Mar Music Sociology and “The Production of Culture”

Reading: selections from Howard Becker, Art Worlds

Listening: to be announced

Project abstract due (approximately 250 words)

29 Mar Music as Material for Social Meaning

Reading: Richard Middleton, Studying Popular Music, introduction

Listening: to be announced

Weeks 6-9: Music and Social Class

Music and the Ancien Régime

Reading: selections from Norbert Elias, The Court Society

Listening: Jean-Baptiste Lully, Atys, Overture and Prologue

12 Apr Music, the Enlightenment, and the Rise of the Bourgeois Public

Reading: selections from Jürgen Habermas, The Structural

Transformation of the Public Sphere; Mary Hunter, “Haydn’s London

Piano Trios and His Salomon String Quartets: Private vs. Public?” from

Elaine Sisman, editor, Haydn and His World

Listening: Joseph Haydn, String Quartet, op. 71, no. 3; Haydn, Piano

Trio, Hob. 23

19 Apr Music and Aristocratic-Bourgeois Conflict in Early 19th-Century Europe

Reading: Tia Denora, “Beethoven and Social Identity” and “The

Beethoven-Wölffl Piano Duel: Aesthetic Debates and Social

Boundaries,” from Beethoven and the Construction of Genius: Musical

Politics in Vienna, 1792-1805

Listening: selections by Ludwig van Beethoven and Joseph Wölffl

Short paper on semester research project due (approximately 4-6 pages)

26 Apr Music and the Middle Class in 19th-Century Europe

Reading: selections from William Weber, Music and the Middle Class

Listening: to be announced

Weeks 11-13: Popular Music and Contemporary Society

10 May Popular Music as Social Force

Reading: selections from Paul Willis, Profane Culture

Listening: to be announced

17 May Musical Value and Popular Music

Reading: selections from Simon Frith, Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music

Listening: to be announced

Final paper on semester research project due (approximately 10-12 pages)

24 May The Sociology of Popular Music as Critique of Modern Industrial Society

Reading: Theodor W. Adorno, “Popular Music,” from Introduction to the Sociology of Music