Course Description
This is a course in the major ideas in social and cultural theory from the mid-19th century to the present. By the end of this course, you will have an understanding of the major figures and lineages in social theory and how (ethno)musicologists have adopted and updated those theories in their ethnographic and other works, so that when you begin to contemplate your fieldwork projects, you will have a grasp of the major theoretical lineages.
Required items
- Bourdieu, Pierre. 1990. The Logic of Practice. Translated by Richard Nice. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
- Durkheim, Emile. 2001. Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. Translated by Carol Cosman. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic.
- Marx, Karl, and Frederick Engels. 1970. The German Ideology. Edited by C. J. Arthur. New York: International.
- Marx, Karl. 1963. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. New York: International.
- Seeger, Anthony. 2003. Why Suyá Sing: A Musical Anthropology of an Amazonian People. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
- Weber, Marx. 2001. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. New York: Routledge.
Assessment
There will be two papers, the first due in week six after the conclusion of the first part of the course; this will be roughly 10 pages and should critique the readings in the course thus far. The second paper will be a 10-page discussion of a recently published music ethnography that you critique based on what you have learned in this course; it will be due the week after the last week of classes. Each paper is worth 40% of the final grade. Attendance and participation are worth 20% of the final grade.
Course schedule
4/3 |
Introduction: There Is No Ethnography without Theory, no Theory without Ethnography |
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PART I: FOUNDATIONS |
Karl Marx |
4/10 |
Marx and Engels
Reading:
- Marx and Engels: The German Ideology (whole book)
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4/17 |
Marx and Engels cont’d
Reading:
- Marx: The Eighteenth Brumaire (whole book)
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Max Weber |
4/24 |
Weber
Reading:
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Emile Durkheim |
5/1 |
Durkheim
Reading:
- Durkheim, Introduction by Durkheim; Book 1, chapter 1; Book 2, chapter 7; Conclusion.
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PART II: CURRENTS |
5/8 |
Lévi-Strauss and Structuralism
Reading:
- Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1967. “The Story of Asdiwal.” In The Structural Study of Myth and Totemism. Edited by Edmund Leach. London: Tavistock.
- _____. 1963. “The Structural Study of Myth.” In Structural Anthropology 1. Translated by Claire Jacobson and Brook Grundfest Schoepf. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
- Turner, Terence S. 1969. “Oedipus: Time and structure in Narrative Form.” In Forms of Symbolic Action. Edited by Robert Spencer. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
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5/15 |
Geertz and the Weberian Interpretation of Culture
Reading:
- Geertz, Clifford. 1973. “Thick Description.” In The Interpretation of Cultures.
- _____. “Religion as a Cultural System.” In The Interpretation of Cultures.
- _____. “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight.” In The Interpretation of Cultures.
- Becker, Judith. 1979. “Time and Tune in Java.” In The Imagination of Reality: Essays in Southeast Asian Coherence Systems. Edited by A.L. Becker and Aram A. Yengoyan. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex.
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5/22 |
Beyond Structuralism: Bourdieu
Reading:
- Bourdieu, beginning though p. 141.
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5/29 |
Recent Marxist and Bourdieusian (Ethno)musicologies
Reading
- Qureshi, Regula Burckhardt. 2002. “Introduction: Thinking Music, Thinking Marx.” In Music and Marx: Ideas, Practice, Politics. Edited by Regula Burckhardt Qureshi. New York: Routledge.
- Stokes, Martin. 2002. “Marx, Money, and Musicians.” In Music and Marx: Ideas, Practice, Politics. Edited by Regula Burckhardt Qureshi. New York: Routledge.
- Taylor, Timothy D. 2007. “The Changing Shape of the Culture Industry; Or, How Did Electronica Music Get into Television Commercials?” Television and New Media 8 (August): 235-58.
- Taylor, Timothy D. 2007. “The Commodification of Music at the Dawn of the Era of ‘Mechanical Music’.” Ethnomusicology 51 (spring/summer): 281-305.
- Thornton, Sarah. “The Distinctions of Cultures without Distinction.” In Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1996, 1-24.
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6/5 |
Integrating Theory with Ethnography
Reading:
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6/13 |
FINAL PAPERS DUE |
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