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Graduate Seminars

Fall 2024

Blackness, Music, and Value Otherwise

Dr. Deonte Harris
Monday, 2:00-4:50 pm

This seminar seeks to generate a new methodological and theoretical model for the study of value by incorporating multidisciplinary and intersectional approaches to its study. Situating music, race, and Blackness as the primary frames of analysis, this course is guided by the following core questions regarding the nature of value in the world and the possibility of value otherwise: What is value, and how is it produced or assigned to things, activities, and even entire social groups perceived as “different?” Why are certain values consistently, and systematically, privileged over others (e.g., wealth accumulation and private property over human lives and the natural environment, the Global North over the Global South, Western art music over folk/traditional/popular music genres, whiteness over Blackness, etc.)? And finally, what unique insights about race and value surface through a focus on music and its commodification, especially Black musicking in the wake of slavery, colonialism, and empire?

Drawing from the anthropological and musicological study of value, as well as critical race, African diaspora, and Black feminist studies, this course interrogates the ways that Blackness is rendered valuable as units of labor and consumable culture under capitalism, while Black life itself is all too often considered to be expendable. Moreover, through analyses of archival, ethnographic, literary, and phonographic source materials on “valued Blackness,” we will gain a better understanding of how the propagation of antiblack racisms and the larger enterprise of racial capitalism are both inextricably linked to the ongoing political struggle of people of African descent to produce a world where Black lives, futures, and ways of being are valued otherwise. Assignments for this course will include short responses to weekly readings, analyses of select listening examples, student-facilitation of discussion sessions, and a final research project and in-class presentation on the theme “Value Otherwise,” focused on the music and lived experiences of members of marginalized and historical oppressed social groups.

Deconstructing Early Music Printing

Anne MacNeilDr. Anne MacNeil
Wednesday, 2:00-4:50 pm

This seminar explores the cognitive dissonance between music and history. If music as an artform resists documentation, history is created from documents – artifacts that present a hazy and incomplete view of the past. Focusing on the earliest prints of Italian popular song, students in the class will work with the instructor to curate a public-facing exhibit about the interface of oral and written musical cultures in 15th– and 16th-century Italy. This work will be informed by readings in archival studies & practices, historical musicology, and performance practices.

Spring 2024

Toward a Critical Theory of the Spectacle

Anna GatdulaDr. Anna B. Gatdula
Monday, 2:00-4:50 pm

In this graduate seminar, we will embark on a multidisciplinary exploration of “the spectacle” within the realms of critical theory, media studies, theater and performance studies, and cultural anthropology. This dynamic term, emblematic of modern cultural theory, encompasses a rich tapestry of aesthetic, affective, and ideological dimensions. The seminar seeks to forge a comprehensive and inclusive theoretical approach that navigates the intricate interplay between the spectacle’s visual and sonic allure, its cultural signification, and its political resonances. Scholars and critics with whom we will engage include: Guy Debord, Terry Eagleton, Fredric Jameson, Michel Chion, Laura Mulvey, Susan Buck-Morss, Peggy Phelan, Diana Taylor, Martha Feldman, Victor Turner, Jacques Ranciére, Saidiya Hartman, Frank Wilderson III, Matthew Morrison, Sianne Ngai, Lauren Berlant, and Anna Kornbluh. Assignments include a final annotated bibliography and in-class presentation. Students will be assessed on their contributions to the weekly seminar discussion.

Engaging Verdi, Opera, and Culture

Naomi AndréDr. Naomi André
Thursday, 2:00-4:50 pm

This seminar explores the works of Giuseppe Verdi and how his operas have had meaning in their own time up through today. We will explore the historical context of the Risorgimento (the nineteenth century Italian unification movement) and examine how the different areas of Italy (northern and southern), Spain, France, German-speaking regions, St. Petersburg, London, and Cairo played important roles in shaping Verdi’s repertoire. In this course we will gain an understanding Verdi’s biography and the sources that flesh out his life (including collections of his letters) and cover modes of analysis in Verdi studies (e.g., creating the critical edition and the conventions of la solita forma). We will read broadly in interdisciplinary areas regarding nation and power, gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, and other topics as they arise. This course takes the stance that the plights of opera characters tell us more than static fictional stories; they show us how people articulate their beliefs and define themselves over different periods in time. We will look at how Verdi’s operas stage themes around class distinctions, gender portrayals, racial representations, moral codes in changing societies, expressions of sexual fidelity, and the pain of betrayal. Assignments will include leading weekly discussions, collaborative analyses, and a final project that may take the form of a paper, conference presentation, or an equivalent project in a different format.

Recent Seminars

Address

UNC Department of Music
CB# 3320; 105 Hill Hall
145 E Cameron Ave
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3320

Contact

phone: (919) 962-1039
music@unc.edu
Faculty Intranet

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