- Department: Music
- Credit value: 20 credits
- Credit level: M
- Academic year of delivery: 2024-25
- See module specification for other years: 2023-24
In this module, we examine theories and approaches to studying music that are common in current critical musicology. You will gain insights into a rapidly evolving discipline and will identify musicological approaches that can serve their own independent research.
Occurrence | Teaching period |
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A | Semester 1 2024-25 |
This module aims to equip you with knowledge of theories and approaches to studying music that are common in current critical musicology. The module engages in detail with particularly influential trends, theories and scholarly practices, and examines these in relation to selected music and interdisciplinary/historical contexts. You will have the opportunity to explore different approaches to the study of music through material presented in class and through the preparatory reading and tasks that accompany each session. You will gain a critical understanding of past and current trends within musicology and will build an informed basis for your own musicological research throughout your MA studies.
By the end of the taught part of the module you should be able to:
Recognise influential trends within musicology and understand your own scholarly position in relation to these trends
Engage in detail with selected theories and approaches within musicology
Apply a variety of theories to the study of music
Draw connections between musicology, other disciplines and social history in the context of particular case studies
Identify topics that can be developed into original musicological research projects
Task | % of module mark |
---|---|
Essay/coursework | 100 |
None
Task | % of module mark |
---|---|
Essay/coursework | 100 |
You will receive written feedback in line with standard University turnaround times.
Reading lists to accompany each session will be available at the start of the semester. The following texts are recommended for general reading:
Beard, David and Kenneth Gloag. (2016) Musicology: The Key Concepts. Second edition. New York; Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Bergeron, Katherine and Philip Bohlman, eds. (1992) Disciplining Music: Musicology and its Canons. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Brett, Philip, Elizabeth Wood and Gary C. Thomas, eds. (2006) Queering the Pitch: The New Gay and Lesbian Musicology. Second edition. New York; London: Routledge.
Clayton, Martin, Trevor Herbert, and Richard Middleton, eds. (2012) The Cultural Study of Music: A Critical Introduction. Second edition. New York; Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Cook, Nicholas and Mark Everist, eds. (1999) Rethinking Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Goehr, Lydia. (1994) The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works: An Essay in the Philosophy of Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
McClary, Susan. (2002) Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Small, Christopher. (1998) Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening. Hanover: University Press of New England.
Solie, Ruth, ed. (1995) Musicology and Difference: Gender and Sexuality in Music Scholarship. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Taylor, Timothy. (2007) Beyond Exoticism: Western Music and the World. Durham, NC; London: Duke University Press.
Taruskin, Richard. (1995) Text and Act: Essays on Music and Performance. New York: Oxford University Press.