January 29
First day of class.
(NEW YORK) CITY LIVING, PART 1
February 4
Required reading:
Patti Smith, Just Kids.
Howard Becker, "Art Worlds and Collective Activity," in Art Worlds (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 1-39.
Recommended media:
A Patti Smith playlist (look for quotations and page numbers from Just Kids).
"Patti Smith: Dream of Life" (2008, dir. Steven Sebring)
(NEW YORK) CITY LIVING, PART 2
February 11
First paper due.
Required reading:
Will Hermes, Love Goes to a Building on Fire.
David Byrne, "How to Make a Scene," in How Music Works (San Francisco: McSweeney's, 2012), 251-66.
LAB SESSION: SCENES ON FILM
Date TBA
Seattle: "Hype" (1996, dir. Doug Pray).
THINKING ABOUT THE SCENE
February 18
Required reading:
Dan Hancox, Stand Up Tall.
Ken Spring, "Behind the Rave: Structure and Agency in a Rave Scene," in Music Scenes: Local, Translocal, and Virtual (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2004), 48-63.
Sarah Thornton, "Authenticities from Record Hop to Raves (and the History of Disc Culture)," in Club Cultures: Music, Media, and Subcultural Capital (New York: Wesleyan University Press, 1996), 26-86.
Matthew Bennett, "The Rise and Fall of East London's Sound Systems," Red Bull Music Academy (website), August 21, 2014.
Recommended viewing:
"Open Mic" (2014, dir. Ewen Spencer).
WHAT'S REALER THAN THE BLUES?
February 25
Required reading:
David Grazian, Blues Chicago.
LAB SESSION: SCENES ON FILM
Date TBA
Sheffield: "The Beat is the Law" (2010, dir. Eve Wood).
THE SOUND OF STEEL CITY
March 4
Required reading:
Simon Reynolds, "Living for the Future," in Rip it Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984 (New York: Penguin, 2006), 85-102.
Owen Hatherley, "Steel Yourself," Urban Trawl (blog), February 8, 2010.
David Stilltoe, "The utopian estate that's been left to die," The Guardian, March 5, 2014.
Owen Hatherley, Uncommon: An Essay on Pulp (Winchester, UK: Zero, 2011), Intro, Chapter 2, plus another chapter of your choice.
WRITING ABOUT CULTURE
March 11
Required reading:
Alex Ross, "The Naysayers: Pop Culture and Power," The New Yorker, September 15, 2014.
Paul Gorman, In Their Own Write: Adventures in the Music Press (London: Sanctuary, 2001), 46-104, 260-99.
Simon Reynolds, "Worth Their Wait," The Pitchfork Review, Winter 2014.
James A. Hodgkinson, "The Fanzine Discourse over Post-Rock," in Music Scenes: Local, Translocal, and Virtual (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2004), 221-37.
SPRING BREAK: March 14-29
THE CITY & THE COUNTRY, PT. 1: MATERIAL CONNECTIONS
April 1
Second paper due.
Required reading:
Frank M. Young & David Lasky, The Carter Family: Don't Forget This Song.
Richard Peterson, Creating Country Music: Fabricating Authenticity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 12-51.
Charlie Gillett, The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll (New York: Da Capo, 1996), 171-223.
Eric Weinberg, "Move over Nashville: New Yorkers Buy Most Country Albums," Nielsen, November 8, 2011.
Steve Haruch, "High Rises vs. Honky Tonks: Gentrification is Threatening Nashville’s Soul," New York Times, December 4, 2014.
THE CITY & THE COUNTRY, PT. 2: IMAGINED DIFFERENCES
April 8
Required reading:
Rob Young, Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain's Visionary Music (New York: Faber & Faber, 2011), 243-78, 345-80.
Andy Bennett, "New Tales From Canterbury: The Making of a Virtual Scene," in Music Scenes: Local, Translocal, and Virtual (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2004), 205-20.
Barney Hoskyns, Hotel California: The True-Life Adventures of Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young, Mitchell, Taylor, Browne, Ronstadt, Geffen, the Eagles, and their Many Friends (New York: Wiley, 2008), 55-97.
LAB SESSION: MUSICAL LANDSCAPES OF THE HUDSON VALLEY
April 8, 8:00pm in Taylor Hall 203
"Looking for the New Brooklyn:
Creative Migrations and Musical Landscapes in Upstate New York."
A conversation with Piotr Orlov.
NEW GEOGRAPHIES, FRONTIER LEGENDS
April 15
Required reading:
View "Decline of Western Civilization, Part 1" (1981, dir. Penelope Spheeris).
Marc Spitz & Brendan Mullen, We Got the Neutron Bomb: The Untold Story of L.A. Punk (New York: Three Rivers, 2001), 63-76, 122-38, 261-73.
Alice Bag, Violence Girl: East L.A. Rage to Hollywood Stage – A Chicana Punk Story (Los Angeles: Feral House, 2011), 180-95, 209-15, 231-44, 308-9, 322-8.
Brendan Mullen, Lexicon Devil: The Fast Times and Short Life of Darby Crash and the Germs (Los Angeles: Feral House, 2002), 1-21, 87-101, 155-76, 191-201.
Michael Azzerad, "Black Flag," in Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991 (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 2001), 13-60.
Daniel S. Traber, "L.A.'s 'White Minority': Punk and the Contradictions of Self-Marginalization," Cultural Critique 48, Spring (2001), 30-64.
URBAN PRACTICES
April 22
Third paper due.
Required reading:
Wayne Marshall, "Treble Culture," in The Oxford Handbook of Mobile Music Studies, Vol. 2, eds. Sumanth Gopinath and Jason Stanyek (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 43-76.
Nikil Saval, "Wall of Sound," Salon, March 28, 2011.
Hari Kunzru, "Twice Upon a Time: Listening to New York," Atavist.
SCENE 3.0: AUTHENTICITY AND PRAXIS
April 29
Required reading:
Adam Harper, "System Focus: Fandom Music is as Underground as It Gets," Fader, November 8, 2014.
Emilie Friedlander, "Social Anxiety: How Red Bull is Changing What It Means to Be an American Musician," Fader, November 20, 2014.
Joe Muggs, "Music Patronage: Our Generous Benefactors," The Guardian, August 10, 2011.
May 6
Final project presentations.
May 16 (study period)
Individual papers on final projects due. |
