Difference between revisions of "Ethnomusicology of the Arab World (Fall 2014)"
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# sensory immersion, via extended listening or viewing (e.g. films, concerts) | # sensory immersion, via extended listening or viewing (e.g. films, concerts) | ||
# musical practica (ear training, composition, improvisation, experiments), sometimes followed by discussion. | # musical practica (ear training, composition, improvisation, experiments), sometimes followed by discussion. | ||
| + | |||
| + | = Course Requirements = | ||
| + | |||
| + | * Regular attendance and participation. Complete preparatory readings, listenings, and viewings before each class. Come prepared with written notes, comments, questions, and critiques. Be able to state each reading’s main points in one or two sentences, and develop a critical perspective: what’s missing? What are the author’s assumptions (perhaps unstated)? Participate in class activities, including discussions. During the term, everyone will present one reading in class, asking probing questions and stirring discussion. | ||
| + | * Map quiz. Identify 22 countries of the Arab League, their capitals, and approximate populations. | ||
| + | * Two synthetic-critical (SC) papers. Each paper draws together five weeks’ worth of readings, listenings, and viewings, by comparing, contrasting, and critiquing them. These are relatively short assignments (4 pages for students enrolled in 468; 6 pages for those enrolled in 568); no additional research is required. Do, however, cite the readings as you discuss them, using any standard for scholarly references, and list all references cited in any standard bibliographic format at the end of the paper. You must reference every assigned reading (optionally, for extra credit, listenings and viewings as well) at least once in one of the two papers. Submit SC papers via eClass. (I’m evaluating these assignments with two questions in mind: (a) did you do the readings? (b) did you think about them?) | ||
| + | * Event ethnography: an ethnographic report on an Arab music or dance performance in Edmonton, including concerts, nightclub performances, rehearsals, or workshops (3 pages for students enrolled in 468; 5 pages for those enrolled in 568). We can all use the eClass' News Forum to alert each other to upcoming events. Attend, participate, observe. In your report, discuss the venue, people, behavior, discourse, music, sequence of events. Try to make connections to what we’ve learned in the course, citing readings as needed. Submit via eClass. Extra credit: transcription and analysis of the music (you’ll need permission to record), with special attention to maqam. | ||
| + | * CSL component, including....Research paper (10 pages for students enrolled in 468; 15 pages for those enrolled in 568) plus derived media-rich online version. There are five components: (1) The research paper topic includes a tentative title, research question, one paragraph abstract, and a short bibliography. (2) The outline indicates the structure of your paper, and provides a full bibliography. (3) The oral presentation (20 minutes) summarizes your principal findings, and will be delivered during one of the two final weeks. (4) The research paper itself is due at the end of the course, along with (5) an online version (presented via blog, course wiki, wikipedia, website, or other cyberpublication channel), comprising the same paper, augmented with audio-visual materials. Submit all written assignments via eClass. | ||
| + | * Extra credit: Maintain an eClass blog, documenting your experiences learning about music of the Arab world, and comment on others’ blogs. Submit reading reports to eClass's Reading Report database, for general reference. Contribute to the course glossary and wikipedia index. Join MENAME. | ||
| + | Note: all page counts refer to double-spaced, 12 pt, 1” margin, Times New Roman text pages, not including bibliography. | ||
= Course Resources = | = Course Resources = | ||
Revision as of 20:55, 2 September 2014
short link to this page: http://bit.ly/arabmusic14
short link to weekly content pages: http://bit.ly/arabmusic14
Contents
Course
Music 468 / 568: Area Studies in Ethnomusicology: The Arab World
Meetings: Fall 2014, Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30 - 1:50 pm, HC 2 34
Instructor
Professor Michael Frishkopf
Office: 334D Old Arts Building
Office hours: Wednesday 1:00-3:30, by appointment
Tel: 780-492-0225, email: michaelf@ualberta.ca
Goals
This course will survey music cultures and trends in the Arab world (broadly defined), from the 7th century to the present. We will develop a critical perspective, by contextualizing music designated as "Arab" within Arab nationalism from the 19th century onwards. Likewise, the concept of "Arab world" will be problematized, and extended to the diasporic community. Historical and music theoretical approaches will be adopted, but the course will focus on the sociology and anthropology of music. We will examine localized musical dialects--urban and rural—characterizing societies and cultures from Morocco to the Gulf, as well as broader mediated forms, and music media themselves, from phonodiscs to satellite TV. Aesthetics of music, the metaphysical, gender and sexuality, politics, coloniality, and globalization are all topics to be taken up. A significant component of the course is sensory immersive, including listening, and a number of music-related films, both documentary and feature. The objective is for you to learn about these multifacted music cultures, and, through them (and by means of their critical analysis) to begin to understand the Arab world (so frequently misunderstood) in a new way.
This course requires a Community Service Learning component, including 20 hours of service supporting a Cairo-based folk music organization, El Mastaba. This component will entail conducting research in support of El Mastaba's social, educational, research, and archival mission: to document and ensure the continuity of traditional Egyptian musical forms.
We'll use eClass for course management, in conjunction with this wiki. You'll find weekly assignments posted on eClasss site, as well as protected resources. All assignments must be uploaded via eClass.
NB: This course can be taken at either of two levels: 468 (regular) or 568 (advanced). If you are an undergraduate, you should be enrolled in 468. Graduate students should be enrolled in 568. Expectations for 568 are slightly higher throughout the course.
Course Schedule
eClass site includes course schedule (readings, listenings, assignments), plus protected resources.
Weekly pages includes lecture notes and listening/viewing examples, week by week.
Course Format
Preparation for class
Readings, listenings, viewings will be finalized on the Moodle (see below) by the Sunday prior to class. For each reading, you should prepare a reading report: one or two paragraphs of summary and critique, for your own reference. (These need not be handed in, but are useful for discussions and writing SC papers. Optionally, you may submit them to the Moodle’s Reading Report Database to share with others).
In class
Each class will combine several kinds of activities (to keep things interesting):
- lectures with AV examples
- student presentations
- class discussions
- sensory immersion, via extended listening or viewing (e.g. films, concerts)
- musical practica (ear training, composition, improvisation, experiments), sometimes followed by discussion.
Course Requirements
- Regular attendance and participation. Complete preparatory readings, listenings, and viewings before each class. Come prepared with written notes, comments, questions, and critiques. Be able to state each reading’s main points in one or two sentences, and develop a critical perspective: what’s missing? What are the author’s assumptions (perhaps unstated)? Participate in class activities, including discussions. During the term, everyone will present one reading in class, asking probing questions and stirring discussion.
- Map quiz. Identify 22 countries of the Arab League, their capitals, and approximate populations.
- Two synthetic-critical (SC) papers. Each paper draws together five weeks’ worth of readings, listenings, and viewings, by comparing, contrasting, and critiquing them. These are relatively short assignments (4 pages for students enrolled in 468; 6 pages for those enrolled in 568); no additional research is required. Do, however, cite the readings as you discuss them, using any standard for scholarly references, and list all references cited in any standard bibliographic format at the end of the paper. You must reference every assigned reading (optionally, for extra credit, listenings and viewings as well) at least once in one of the two papers. Submit SC papers via eClass. (I’m evaluating these assignments with two questions in mind: (a) did you do the readings? (b) did you think about them?)
- Event ethnography: an ethnographic report on an Arab music or dance performance in Edmonton, including concerts, nightclub performances, rehearsals, or workshops (3 pages for students enrolled in 468; 5 pages for those enrolled in 568). We can all use the eClass' News Forum to alert each other to upcoming events. Attend, participate, observe. In your report, discuss the venue, people, behavior, discourse, music, sequence of events. Try to make connections to what we’ve learned in the course, citing readings as needed. Submit via eClass. Extra credit: transcription and analysis of the music (you’ll need permission to record), with special attention to maqam.
- CSL component, including....Research paper (10 pages for students enrolled in 468; 15 pages for those enrolled in 568) plus derived media-rich online version. There are five components: (1) The research paper topic includes a tentative title, research question, one paragraph abstract, and a short bibliography. (2) The outline indicates the structure of your paper, and provides a full bibliography. (3) The oral presentation (20 minutes) summarizes your principal findings, and will be delivered during one of the two final weeks. (4) The research paper itself is due at the end of the course, along with (5) an online version (presented via blog, course wiki, wikipedia, website, or other cyberpublication channel), comprising the same paper, augmented with audio-visual materials. Submit all written assignments via eClass.
- Extra credit: Maintain an eClass blog, documenting your experiences learning about music of the Arab world, and comment on others’ blogs. Submit reading reports to eClass's Reading Report database, for general reference. Contribute to the course glossary and wikipedia index. Join MENAME.
Note: all page counts refer to double-spaced, 12 pt, 1” margin, Times New Roman text pages, not including bibliography.
Course Resources
El Mastaba Community Service Learning Project. This is a CSL course. Here is where we'll organize our contributions to El Mastaba, a folk music organization based in Cairo, Egypt.
