Music and Islam (Fall 2015)
MUSIC AND ISLAM
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Contents
Instructor
Professor Michael Frishkopf
Meetings: Fall 2015, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:30 - 1:50 pm, Old Arts 403
Office: 334D Old Arts Building
Office hours: Wednesday 1:30-3:30 pm, by appointment
Tel: 780-492-0225, email: michaelf@ualberta.ca
Overview
This course addresses the sonic practices of Islamic rituals, Muslim discourses about music, and the relation of both to the rich diversity of religious and musical practices in Muslims societies around the globe. Course content includes lecture, seminar, and multimedia formats. No formal knowledge of music history, theory, ethnomusicology, or Islam is required. Undergraduates should enroll in Music 469; graduate students should enroll in Music 569.
Course objectives
• To become familiar – experientially and intellectually – with genres of Islamic sonic performance, their musical-textual structures, meanings, social-historical contexts, and spiritual-cultural implications. • To develop a felt understanding of Islam as a social-spiritual system of belief and practice, through experience and study of its sonic dimension, in social, cultural, and historical context. • To thereby learn about Muslim cultures and societies throughout history, and especially in the present day. • To understand some of the ways in which religious ideologies and sonic practices interact (directly or indirectly), especially in the form of discourse about music.
Course requirements
Evaluation
Assignments and weights
NB:
- There will be no exams.
- Unexcused late assignments will be downgraded one quarter point per day.
- When page counts are given they refer to 1" margins, single-spaced, Times New Roman font, or equivalent. "References cited" or "bibliography" does not count towards the page total.
- Be sure to cite all references using the (author year:pages) format, and list all references cited at the end of your paper.
Grading scale
Evaluations of each assignment are on a scale from 0-4.3 points. These scores are combined according to the percentages indicated below in order to produce a final numeric grade. This grade is rounded to the nearest numeric value in the table below, in order to determine the final letter grade.
- A+: 4.3
- A: 4.0
- A-: 3.7
- B+: 3.3
- B: 3.0
- B-: 2.7
- C+: 2.3
- C: 2.0
- C-: 1.7
- D+: 1.3
