Music for Global Human Development - Winter 2019 plan

From Canadian Centre for Ethnomusicology
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Week 1: Introduction

An introduction to the course: "Area Studies in Ethnomusicology: Africa (Music for Global Human Development in Africa)"

Tues, 8 Jan 2019

  • Welcome to the class! Note: There are absolutely no prerequisites for this course.
  • Introductions. What do you want to get out of this course? Please respond on eClass also.
  • In this class we'll study African music (traditional and popular, live and mediated) as a potential social technology for positive change...
    • As an indigenous technology: how does music work its social impact, ethnically (traditional) or generationally (popular)
    • As an intervention: what can it do, and how?
  • Concepts:
    • "Music": narrow and broad definitions, expressive culture.
    • Ethnomusicology: the study of music in the broadest possible sense
    • Ethnomusicology's breadth: the three "extensions": sonic, contextual, disciplinary.
    • Applied Ethnomusicology (operating outside academia)
    • M4GHD: "Music as a social technology"
    • Africa and African Studies
      • History of the concept, exonym vs endonym, geographical or cultural, natural or artificial?
      • Diversity (climate, religion, culture, language, history, politics)
      • African languages
      • Africa through maps
    • African music vs. Music in Africa
      • Traditional (and folklorized), including "traditional religious"
      • Popular (what are the fundamental differences?)
      • "Classical", church. Centrality of vocal music.
      • World music, world beat
      • Diversity and generalizations (temporal, tonal, instrumental, social)
    • African music - Stereotypes to be shattered:
      • "It's primitive" (complexity, ethnocentrism)
      • "It's Rhythmic" (not all, poetry central)
      • "It's all drumming" (melodic instruments)
      • "It's ahistoric like Africa" (developments, histories)
      • "Everyone can drum" (big differences in talent)
      • "It's all erotic" (well, it's all relative!)
      • "It's all the same" (huge variety!)
      • "It's at the root of blues and jazz" (yes to some extent, but flows also went the other way...)
      • "It's all traditional" (lots of interchanges within Africa and beyond, e.g. xylophones)
      • "It's all local due to isolation" (not at all!)
      • "It's all oral" (art music traditions)
    • Development
    • Music for Global Human Development in Africa. A ppt presentation and overview of some recent projects, such as Singing and Dancing for Health
    • Northern Ghana: Hausa and Dagomba. Most in need of development. Organizations: University for Development Studies, Youth Home Cultural Group (see overview and interview with Assau Mohammed), many MANY NGOs... Northern Ghana will be our project focus. See Map (from prior summer program)

A few more key course concepts:

  • Ethnocentrism (Chronocentrism, Lingocentrism...)
  • Etic and Emic, vs. Outsider and Insider
  • Quantitative and Qualitative research. The importance of data and its limits.
  • Scientific, Humanistic, and Critical research
  • Source and Reference. Example: Richard Wallaschek's book on Primitive Music tells us about music of the world, but tells us even more about the author's world of the late 19th century. Claim: everything in the world is a SOURCE.
  • Critical thinking, reading, writing. We turn SOURCE into REFERENCE through the process of CRITIQUE.
  • Reading review: bipartite (summary/critique)

Course plan:

  • Begin with the big picture: Africa, African music, ethnomusicology, M4GHD
  • Then we turn to a series of case studies focused on music and development, indigenous and interventional, around Africa
  • Meanwhile we are learning about northern Ghana and you are developing a M4GHD project proposal to be implemented there
  • In March Assau Mohammed will join us for consultations and training in traditional Dagomba music and dance
  • Final week: present your projects, due as final papers the week after
  • Note: this is a seminar, meaning your presence and active participation is crucial!

Course mechanics: Syllabus: Resources, Requirements, Websites, and Mechanics. It is not necessary to purchase any books for this course.

Note:

  • Jan 25 and 28: Afrobrazilian artist Danda da Hora - lecture demo (25th at 3:30) and workshop (28th at 12:30) - not to be missed! Details forthcoming.
  • Signup for the CCE-people mailing list to stay in the loop; see http://cce.ualberta.ca

Thur, 10 Jan 2019

Assignment (complete before class)

  • Watch: Basil Davidson film, Africa part 1 (1 hour). We'll watch other parts of this wonderful (if somewhat old) BBC series by one of Africa's foremost journalists and interpreters. (Sorry for the poor picture quality, but it's really worth watching the whole series and the best possible introduction to African studies.)
  • Read: African History: A Short Introduction, chapter 1 (pp. 19-34; 15 pages)
  • Read: African Music : A People's Art by Francis Bebey, through page 16.
  • Listen: select two musical tracks from Africa (1) a traditional song, using Global Jukebox or ; (2) a popular song from Awesome tapes from Africa
  • Write (2 critical paragraphs, just a couple of sentences for each question - but do think critically!). Submit on eClass:
    • What is "Africa"?
    • What is "African music"?
    • How does African music function as a "social technology", or how can it be modified to do so? (use your two selected tracks as examples)
  • For fun: test your skills at identifying Africa's 55 countries (and capitals!). Interactive map quiz for African countries; another quiz for capitals.
  • Also for fun: Practice the "standard pattern" we tried in class, striking right and left hand on table top (or drum...):
    • long long short long long long short (right hand)
    • four beats (left hand)
    • Then try dropping out hand strokes to create variations.
    • If that's confusing try this, one instance of the so-called "standard pattern" found throughout Africa and its diaspora (see video), in 12 pulses (this version is typical of Ewe music in southeastern Ghana):
R . R . R R . R . R . R
L . . L . . L . . L . .

Class

  • Reintroductions
  • Test your knowledge of African countries.
  • Thought questions:
    • What is Africa?
    • What is African music?
    • Who created either?
    • Why is African music frequently said to focus on "rhythm" and "drumming"? What are the associated stereotypes?
    • How does African music function as a "social technology", why is it particularly suitable? or how can it be modified to do so? What are its key features?
    • Use your songs as examples.
  • Your songs.
  • African popular music: Giving Voice to Hope. What did you think of it? Range of styles. Advantages and disadvantages for M4GHD?
  • More on M4GHD (ppt)
  • Traditional African music vs. popular African music
    • Warp vs. weft
    • How can we define "traditional"? (etic term) Consider: factors of cultural continuity, ethnicity, mediation, commodification, scale-free properties
    • The Standard Pattern (etic) - recurring in many African and African diasporic cultures. Your rhythm. Powerpoint on Ghanaian music: 4/4 and 12/8. See notation above.
    • The highlife pattern (etic) - also common in Africa and the diaspora, in 16 pulses, as 3+3+4+2+4 (a traditional variant is 3+3+4+4+2)
R . . R . . R . . . R . R . . .
L . . . L . . . L . . . L . . .

Week 2

Tues, 15 Jan

Assignment

  • Watch: The Drums of Dagbon (traditional music of Ghana's north). Note: you can view a transcript as the video plays (click on the Transcript tab). The film was written by drummer Alhaji Ibrahim Abdulai and ethnomusicologist John Miller Chernoff.
  • Watch: Fonko: An African Musical Revolution (popular music)
  • Read: Chernoff chapters 1 & 2 (music of Ghana - one of the most famous ethnographic studies ever written by a celebrated ethnomusicologist, John Chernoff) (33 pages; you can read a bit selectively - just skip the notations if you're not comfortable with reading them).
  • Read: Representing African Music Introduction (pp. xi - xxii; 11 pages). One of the world's foremost music theorists, and professor at Princeton University, reflects on the ways African music has been (mis)represented. Key critical viewpoint from an insider/outsider.
  • Write: drawing on the above examples, how is African music represented by ethnomusicologists, both in scholarly writing and in film? What is the role of the scholar? Where are the strengths of these representations? Potential pitfalls? Just one paragraph please.

Class

Review

  • Names
  • African countries
  • Rhythms (12, 16)
  • A song!
  • Northern Ghana: Dagomba (Dagbamba), Dagbani (Dagbanli), Dagbon. My installation as chief: video excerpts.
  • "Sad music" in Africa? How to determine? (interesting question raised by Taekwan)

Discussion #1: Representation

  • What are Africa and African music, and how are they represented - in Africa, Europe, Americas?
  • What are some of the critical points Kofi Agawu presents in his introduction? What do you think? How does his critique apply to Chernoff's writing/film?
  • How are Africa and African music represented in scholarly or popular discourses you've encountered thus far? What are the implications? What is the ethical role of the scholar in representation? What is the role of race? How do these issues bear upon M4GHD?
  • Take your songs as examples (from last Thursday as examples - please be sure you've supplied links; bring your ideas to the discussion.)
  • Take the two films (The Drums of Dagbon, Fonko) as further examples. Who produced them and how?

Discussion #2: Traditional and Popular music

  • What did you think of the two films, Drums of Dagbon, and Fonko? What did they tell you about Africa, Africans, African music?
  • What are some of the differences between traditional and popular music in Africa?
  • How do both traditional and popular musics already function as M4GHD?
  • How can they be repurposed in M4GHD interventions? What are the tradeoffs - differences in usage and impact?

Discussion #3: brainstorming ideas for your projects in Northern Ghana. I encourage you to incorporate your own interests, skills, background experiences (musical, linguistic, and otherwise - health, politics, literature) in this project, even bringing in music from other places - there might be a unique role for it in Ghana! Think broadly: dramas, games, electronics, teaching...it's all possible! The main things to think about are:

  • Feasibility - can it happen? Where will funding come from to get the ball rolling?
  • Sustainability - can it be maintained without outside support?
  • Scaleability - can it grow?

Thurs, 17 Jan

Assignment

Class

Week 3

Tues, 22 Jan

Assignment

  • Watch: Part 3 in the Basil Davidson film series.
  • Read: The Lions of Dagbon, preface; chapters 1 and 2 (and have a close look at the map)
  • Write: 1-2 paragraphs containing ideas for your M4GHD project, and provisionally outlining: (1) what: objectives, (2) who: participants and collaborations (whether local or not, individuals or organizations), (3) where, when: locations and timelines; (4) how: methods, material resources, funding, sustainability, assessment. All this can be very tentative - you can change it all later - and needn't be long. Just jot down your ideas for now, so we can all discuss and I can respond and offer suggestions. You may optionally append a list of sources, including books, articles, or websites (scholarly or not). Submit on eClass.

Class

Note: Kinka's rhythm is similar to that of highlife, but the last beat is delayed slightly:

R . . R . . R . . . R . . . R .
L . . . L . . . L . . . L . . .

Thurs, 24 Jan

Assignment

  • Browse: Dagomba Dance Drumming site, created by Prof. David Locke at Tufts University
    • Read the Welcome page and browse top-level links.
    • Read each section under About Site Content
    • Under Repertory review materials for the Takai dance
      • Read the Takai History Story PDF
      • Now Focus on the Takai Nyagboli rhythm
        • Read Music Analysis for Nyagboli
        • Review vocables, drumming, and drum language, and drumming for Takai-Nyagboli. Listen to the vocables for the lead gung-gong and see if you can imitate them. Listen to the drumming and drum language for the same drum. Read the notations, at least to see how the words fit.
        • Then, using the Mixer, try singing along with the different parts, starting with the lead gung-gong.
        • On Thursday we'll try performing using vocables only!
  • Select a critical social issue and appropriate partner organizations for northern Ghana, to serve as your project's focal point. Building on what you wrote for Tuesday:
    • Browse Development data sources, especially Ghana Statistical service (feel free to search for other sources as well), that support the importance of your selected social issue, and perhaps suggest how to approach it, and with whom. Data is very important, both to make a compelling case for a project (including fundraising), and to summarize impact, particularly for music (which is not generally viewed as a serious development option, even if it should be!)
    • Sketch out (in your mind) your compelling case for addressing that issue, by gathering numbers - augmented with graphical presentations of data if you like (try http://Gapminder.org, or just use a spreadsheet).
    • Locate a few suitable partner organizations - whether governmental, non-governmental (NGO, or inter-governmental (IGO) - operating on the ground in northern Ghana, whose relevance is suggested by data. I've listed a few operating in northern Ghana on the resources page but there are many more. Feel free to search on your own.
    • Think about how your music project can address the social issue in collaboration with the partner, as well as Youth Home Cultural Group or another music-centered group (live or mediated).
    • Write two paragraphs about your selected issue (and data supporting its importance) and partner organizations. What is the issue and why is it important? Who are the partners and why are they appropriate? How might the musical PAR (Participatory Action Research) network unfold? Include graphical visualizations if you wish. (You can upload a document for this assignment.)

Class

  • Announcements:
    • Oliver Mtukudzi (1952 - 23 Jan 2019), Zimbabwe's musical light [1]
    • Dandha da Hora, lead dancer with Ilê Aiyê, one of Brazil’s most important musical and cultural institutions. lec-dem: Friday, January 25⋅3:30 – 5:00pm. Workshop on Monday,12:30 – 3:30pm. Both in Arts-Based Research Studio - 4-104 Education Centre North
  • Arts Interventions for HIV Awareness:
  • M4GHD, continued... (slides 13-21)
  • Present your M4GHD projects, with data and collaborating organizations.

Week 4

Tuesday, Jan 29

Assignment

  • As needed, review M4GHD on Google Drive (I've included the presentation, as well as a short paper, now in press)
  • Read: Frishkopf, Michael. Popular Music as Public Health Technology: Music for Global Human Development and “Giving Voice to Health” in Liberia. Journal of Folklore Research, Vol. 54, No. 1-2, Music and Global Health (January/August 2017), pp. 41-86 (focus on the section up to p. 54 ; you can skim the remainder). Here you'll find lots of background on related concepts and subdisciplines. Unlike my previous paper this one centers on popular music. Also watch the accompanying music video and documentary.
  • Write: Review M4GHD as a general approach to applied ethnomusicology. (a) What are its aims, theories, and methods? (b) What are its strengths and weaknesses? (please don't shy away from pointing out weaknesses. I love a good critique!) (c) Which concepts or disciplines discussed in "Popular Music as Public Health Technology" may be useful for your project and why? Submit 3 brief paragraphs on eclass addressing (a), (b), and (c).
  • Note that I've set up a wiki on your eclass page - please feel free to use that to share lists of (a) organizations; (b) related projects and sites; (c) scholarly sources (books, articles, films...).
  • Also review the Takai music assigned for last time - on Tuesday we'll perform it for sure!

Class

  • Another map quiz
  • PACE and Saturday Feb 1 inaugural event in Telus lobby (9 am - 2 pm).
  • Perform:
  • Project ideas: music as source of cultural knowledge and group identity. Cultural knowledge and identity as crucial to wellbeing and even survival.
    • CBC program on of Jeremy Dutcher's 2018 Polaris prize winning album Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa as part of an "Indigenous renaissance".[2]
    • Languages and ethnic groups of northern Ghana. Some are actually endangered, but as most people communicate in majority languages outside their home villages, and as the educational system doesn't deploy most of them, the smaller linguistic communities are dissolving into the majority, in a situation that parallels that of Canada.
    • Issues of language endangerment.
    • Even if languages are thriving, there is traditional music endangerment -- along with culture generally, and intergenerational connections that sustain it-- is threatened by local popular as well as western genres and ideas.
    • What then happens to the culture and social cohesiveness of smaller traditional groups? Can a M4GHD intervention help?
    • How can music help promote linguistic and cultural diversity? Intergenerational connection?
    • Individual identity? Sense of cultural pride and self-worth?
    • Thought question: to what extent can we talk about "indigenous" groups in Africa?
  • Present: your projects (for those who haven't presented; Nargis can start since she didn't get much time last class). Remember to combine a project idea with possible partners and statistics supporting your ideas. Additional considerations:
    • How can you demonstrate feasibility?
    • How can you most effectively work with Assau during his residency in March?

Thurs, 31 Jan

Special Guest: Garth Prince!

Assignment

  • Read Garth's Music Arts Manifesto.
  • Browse his website and projects, and watch the video
  • Submit a paragraph on eClass: How does Garth's project relate to M4GHD? What ideas does his work inspire for your projects?
  • Submit one bibliographic entry in the same eClass submission: Select an ethnomusicological reading concerning M4GHD (either literally as intervention or as indigenous practice that may serve as a model) that you would like to present to the class for discussion in February. Preferably (but not essentially) select articles relevant to Africa. For now you can simply submit the article title/author/journal and link (if the source is available online).

Note that I've just shared with you an online bibliography (using Zotero) -- "Music and wellbeing in Africa" -- containing potentially relevant articles, books, and chapters, as well as reference works you may use to locate suitable sources. You can browse or edit here - please add your selected article or book chapter if it's not already there.

Class

Week 5

Tues, 5 Feb

Assignment

Theatre for Development:

Browse the following short videos:

  • [3] (Unicef projects: 3 videos)
  • [4] (Creative Center for Community Mobilization, Effecting Change Through Community Involvement, in Malawi)
  • [5] (Richard Ndunguru is an Instructor at the Department of fine and performing arts of the University of Dar es Salaam; he has developed the idea of "Film for Development")
  • [6] (representing the work of Act 4 Africa, an NGO dedicated to Theatre for Development to "promote gender justice for women and girls, equip them with life skills to be free from poverty, and combat HIV."


Select any one chapter from the online book African Theatre for Development, edited by Kamal Salhi*. OR...select one of Professor Asiama's articles on theatre and storytelling for development, stored here. OR...You may also select any other scholarly book chapter or article you may be able to locate, so long as it centers on African theatre or drama for development. Review and critique your selected chapter, including a few sentences on how you might apply its ideas or methods to your project. Submit on eClass. Be prepared to introduce it to the class, presenting the gist of its contents and your critique and application in just a couple of minutes.

  • If you have trouble with this link just search for the book from our Library catalog; an electronic version will come up.

Class

  • Oliver Mtukudzi obituary in the NYT
  • Zotero database: Music and Wellbeing in Africa
  • Fighting the stigma of mental health issues through music, and the healing powers of music as therapy.
  • New wikis on eClass - seeking your input. Note especially "modalities of musical action"
  • Discussion of remaining student projects (deferred from last week)
  • February's seminars
    • Some possible articles
    • Scheduling your presentations: 3 each day (Feb 7, 14, 26, 28). Vicky has volunteered for this Thursday. I need two more. Be sure your selections are on the wiki.
    • Format of presentation and discussion: 1. summary, 2. critique, 3. applicability to M4GHD projects in Africa, including yours!, [5-10 min total] 4. discussion questions [10-15 min total]
  • Theatre for Development:
    • Sometimes filed under "Edutainment" or else "Communication for Development" (C4D). Natural link to music and dance, as part of the storytelling process.
    • History: Theatre of the Oppressed (Augusto Boal and the participatory "spect-actor" theory, building on Paulo Freire's liberatory Pedagogy of the Oppressed). Forum Theatre (David Diamond's Theatre for Living in Vancouver), Community theatre, Street Theatre, Improvisation, "breaking the 4th wall", playback theatre, radio, TV, and film dramas....stirring dialog, thought and feeling, towards freedom, human rights, social justice, positive social change and wellbeing. Whether live or mediated, all are theatrical analogues to M4GHD's emphasis on resonance through communication of "thought-feeling" towards rehumanization.
    • What are the advantages of these interactive, community-based, grassroots, participatory theatrical approaches to C4D?
      • Think about: who participates, who controls, what stories are told, what symbolic codes, genres, and pre-existing relationships are invoked?
      • What are the implications for sustainability and scaleability?
      • How do such techniques support data-gathering (for other development directions) as well as directly impacting society?
      • What can music contribute to the process?
      • Compare to more centralized, top-down, external C4D (e.g. TV and radio produced outside the community). What is lost with the latter? (What is gained?)
    • Your readings, critiques and application to your projects. Can you think of ways to incorporate drama (including comedy, improv, storytelling as well as music and dance) into your own work? What are the advantages? Hurdles?

Thurs, 7 Feb

Week 6

Tues, 12 Feb

Special guest: Dr. Carinna Friesen.

It is longer than I had planned, so encourage students to browse or skim and read the parts that interest them. The first half is contextual material regarding Burkina Faso and the Mennonite churches with whom I worked, since I wanted to give them the opportunity for some background information beforehand. Then I also included a large chunk from my mediation since I thought it might be interesting for students to compare how I discussed the role of media technology within the Christian/EEMBF context with the article I sent earlier. 

Thurs, 14 Feb

In class today:

  • A look ahead...
    • Due Saturday 16 Feb (revised due date):Project worksheet, proposing a M4GHD project involving African music - download and submit on eClass. This will constitute the first draft of your Preliminary project proposal. I'll give you feedback so you can continue working on it over the break.
    • READING WEEK is next week...Enjoy! But also use this week to catch up on your projects. You can see from the worksheet roughly what will be required. I will return to you my comments by Monday to give you direction. Revise and extend each section. Fill out your bibliography, do some reading, take notes. Then you'll be in good shape to continue the research (in conjunction with Mohammed Assau's visit; see below) and write it up.
    • LATE FEB: Presentation schedule for Feb 26 and 28....still to schedule: Taekwan (26), Nargis (28), Andrea (26), Jennifer (26), Angela (28), Daniel (28), Mehdi (28) (can we stay until 5 pm 28th? we'll have to squeeze in 3 one day and 4 the other)
    • MARCH will focus on our Distinguished Visitor, Mohammed Assau, from the Youth Home Cultural Group in Tamale, Ghana. Note that we'll have lots of musical training in March from Assau - and we'll be meeting at FAB 2-7 for much of that. You'll also have an opportunity to talk to Assau about your projects, or to ask him any questions at all about music, dance, song, culture, and ordinary life (religion, family, marriage...) in Ghana, including the "big problems" that people face on a daily basis, and which your projects may address.
      There are several ways to learn from this experience and enrich your projects. You may decide to incorporate this music in your project verbatim, or to adopt similar resources from elsewhere in Ghana, or Africa. You will also learn more about how African music, dance, and song form a holistic fabric, and something of the psychological and social implications of learning and performing such music. You will gain an aesthetic and affective appreciation of this art and its role in society. Finally, you will learn about how African performance can be effectively taught to those who have little to no experience with it. NB: we may not meet on Tues March 4; I'll assign a film instead if so...Assau arrives at the airport that day at 3:30 pm!
    • BIBLIOGRAPHIES and the importance of READING/SKIMMING. All of the papers we're reading together this month contain valuable bibliographies, and many are also cited in subsequent research One of your best strategies is to locate a paper of interest, then trace it backwards and forwards in time. To go back: look at its bibliography. To go forward: consult Web of Science and run a Cited Reference Search. Try e.g. Van Buren in ETHNOMUSICOLOGY (one of today's articles).
    • APRIL: I hope we can set up a poster session presenting our work, perhaps on Tues April 2 or Thurs April 4? Various tools are available (e.g. https://www.canva.com/) but we should fix a size. I will look for funds from CCE or Music and a good location.
  • Today's presentations: Earl, Jaehun, Biying. Please read their selected papers on the wiki in advance. Take notes, think of questions, and also consider how the research described in these papers may apply - mutatis mutandis - to your own projects.

Week 7 (Reading Week - no class)

Week 8

Tues, 26 Feb

  • Some brief comments on your project worksheets (I will elaborate on some of this material in weeks to come...)
  • Announcements:
    • Next Tuesday no class; please watch the videos listed about Tamale and development issues in Ghana for inspiration and cultural familiarity.
    • A week from Thursday meet in Studio 27 (Fine Arts Building) prepared for a music/dance workshop. Every Thursday in March we'll meet there. Map on http://cce.ualberta.ca
    • March 21 we'll host a group of 19 Japanese Nursing students who want to learn about music and health in Africa, so be prepared to present your projects very briefly - 2-3 min (add a single slide to this deck that summarizes your project)
  • Other notes:
    • Shady Rabab and recycled instruments in Egypt
    • A nation of weavers, by David Brooks (NYT columnist).
    • Example for critical evaluation of sources, turning: source into reference. This video advocating entrepreneurship instead of aid was assigned for my son's school. Reading between the lines one finds free-market values are emphasized as more empowering, transformative, and sustaining. Where do the values come from? Who produced the video? Following the trail: http://povertycure.org/ to https://acton.org/. Typical instance: making the context (values, economy, politics) explicit. None of this sleuthing is to deny the truth of the film's messages but only to make the implicit explicit, to conditionally reframe "A" as "X said A" as a move from "source" (utterance) to "reference" (truth).
  • Today's presentations: Taekwan, Andrea, Jennifer. Please read their selected papers on the wiki in advance. Take notes, think of questions, and also consider how the research described in these papers may apply - mutatis mutandis - to your own projects.

Thurs, 28 Feb

Assignment

write up your selected article or chapter in three (short) parts and submit on eClass. I will share these with the class (only!) so polish them a bit...NOTE: If you find that your selected article/chapter is no longer relevant to your project you may select one of your classmates' articles/chapters to write up instead.

  1. What's it about? Summarize the article's main points and provide an overview of its scope.
  2. Critique: Turn "source" into "reference" via critique (see above). Provide your critical view of your article's limitations, authorial biases, unstated or outdated assumptions and ideologies, unwarranted generalizations, ill-advised methodologies, even outright factual errors, reflecting its broader social, cultural, or political context (problematize the article's aims, methods, concepts and theories...meaning: place them into a broader frame or context, such as the author's worldview or the larger political-economic-social system the author inhabits, revealing them as social constructions of a particular system at a particular place and time, perhaps oriented towards a particular strategic aim, whether with or without the author's knowledge or intention).
  3. Application: how can this article or chapter (duly critiqued, transposed, or reinterpreted) be used for your project, or for any other M4GHD project in Africa? Think about the multiple aspects of M4GHD (see m4ghd.org).

Class

PLEASE COME ON TIME because we need to use the full 80 minutes for four presentations.

Today's presentations: Nargis, Angela, Daniel, Mehdi. Please read their selected papers on the wiki in advance. Take notes, think of questions, and also consider how the research described in these papers may apply - mutatis mutandis - to your own projects.

Week 9

Tues, 5 Mar

Note: we may have to cancel class today as I'll likely be picking up Assau at the airport. Please use this time to watch the following short videos that will provide you with a more in-depth and intuitive understanding of Ghana and its key issues, particularly in the north. Submit a summary of your emotional and critical responses on eClass. Which videos resonated the most and why? Can you use any of these ideas in your projects? How?

Big Problems:

General:

Thurs, 7 Mar

First session with Assau! Meet at Studio 27 (FAB 2-7), in the Fine Arts Building (2nd floor, across from the central stairwell). This will be a get-acquainted session and we'll embark in some practical study of Dagomba performing arts, so please come dressed to dance as well as learn about northern Ghanaian arts and culture.

Week 10

Tues, 12 Mar

Meet at Old Arts 4-03 for discussions. Consider yourself an ethnomusicologist meeting a master musician with a great but time-limited opportunity to learn about music and culture in northern Ghana. Prepare three questions for Assau about northern Ghana (music, dance, traditional and popular culture, social issues, etc) and submit them on eClass. We'll use these as the basis for an extended discussion in class.

Thurs, 14 Mar

Meet at Studio 27 (FAB 2-7)