Music and Religion (Winter 2010)

Classes: Tuesday 2:00PM-4:50PM

Location: HC 2-30

Instructor: Dr. Federico Spinetti

Office: 3-34A Arts & Convocation Hall; office hours: Wednesday 10:00AM-12:00PM, or by appointment; tel. 492-7534; spinetti@ualberta.ca

Course description

This course explores the relationship between music and religious beliefs and practices, calling upon both ethnographic studies and theoretical perspectives. It aims at developing familiarity with a diverse range of religious, musical and socio-cultural settings through the study of scholarly literature primarily drawn from the field of ethnomusicology and through the examination of selected audiovisual examples. It also addresses a variety of theoretical approaches to the study of music and religion, and encourages students to engage in critical thinking and interpretive openness in respect of a plurality of methodological, epistemological and cultural-philosophical perspectives. In addition to the areas of inquiry and the topics selected by the instructor, students will be encouraged to undertake independent pieces of research and contribute with their interests and experience to shaping the contents, approaches and materials of the course. No formal knowledge of music history, music theory or ethnomusicology is required.

Objectives

Issues addressed will include:

- the often contested and fluid boundaries entrenching the notions of sacred and secular, and the ways in which music is involved in the relationship between them;

- critical examination of the very notions of “music” and “religion”, and their relevance to scholarly analysis as well as to the values and concepts of a number of musical cultures around the world. To what extent are music and religion separate domains? To what extent is religion distinct from law, science, ethics, aesthetics, politics?

- critical attention to the relationship between scholarly concerns and insiders' worldviews and interpretations;

- the relevance of historical, social, ideological and political contexts to musical and religious practices, concepts and meanings. How the relationship between music and religion relates to social ideologies, affecting issues of ethics, status of musicians and musical genres, social regulation and censorship.

- the relationship between religious values and/or sonic practices and the development of aesthetic paradigms and modalities of experience. To what extent is religion involved in the development of artistic expressive cultures?

- religion as relevant to politics, identity and power, and how that is manifested and articulated musically;

- the relationship between music and cosmology, religious symbolism and mythology; the relationship between music and ritual performance, sacred texts and ecstatic/mystical practices and beliefs;

- music as a site of articulation and contestation of notions of religious orthodoxy and syncretism;

- the role of music in the construction of religious meanings and experiences; what makes “religious music” religious?

- religion and popular music, media and market economy; the impact of commodification on religious/devotional music, and the role of religious music and themes in local and international music industries and in cultural and economic globalization.

Prerequisites

Undergraduates should enroll in 464; graduates should enroll in 564.

Course requirements

- Attendance and participation. Including: doing weekly readings and participating actively and pertinently in class discussions.

- Reading review. A written review of a class reading (article) of your choice (excluding the readings for your Reading presentations, see below). Your review should be of the kind usually found in scholarly journals, that is, it should be polished and well written in an academic style, accurate, and critically sharp. It should include 1) a short description/summary, 2) a discussion of the main arguments, and 3) a critical evaluation of your reviewed reading. Length of review: between 700-800 words. Reviews that do not respect this word limit will be downgraded by one full point on the letter grading scale (i.e. from A to A-, from A- to B+, etc). Likewise, unjustified late submissions will be penalized by one full point on the letter grading scale. Please submit your review both in hard copy and electronically (via email). DUE WEEK 5.

- Reading presentations. Each student will be asked to give two class presentations (duration: 10 min.)) on one individually assigned reading, and to lead class discussion. In your short presentations you should summarize your reading, identify its main argument/s, and critically assess it.

- Final research project proposal (midterm assignment). You will have to outline a written research plan focusing on

A) A musical-religious tradition/community/genre that has not been discussed in class, OR

B) A novel aspect of one musical-religious tradition/community/genre that has already been discussed in class, OR

C) A general theoretical topic (such as music & ritual, religion & musical aesthetics, etc) to be explored through the comparative examination and discussion of two or more case studies.

Your proposal will include:

1) A general description of your chosen musical-religious community/tradition/genre or topic;

2) A set of clearly defined research questions;

3) A provisional annotated bibliography (between 5 and 10 titles).

Length of proposal: 1,000 – 1,200 words for sections 1&2 + 2/3 sentences per annotated reference. Proposals that do not respect the word limit will be downgraded by one full point on the letter grading scale (i.e. from A to A-, from A- to B+, etc). Likewise, unjustified late submissions will be penalized by one full point on the letter grading scale. Please submit your proposal both in hard copy and electronically (via email). DUE WEEK 8.

- Final research project presentation. You will be presenting in class on your work-in-progress for your final research paper (duration: 15-20 min.). Use of audiovisual materials and/or Powerpoint is highly recommended for your presentation. DUE WEEKS 12, 13 and 14.

- Final research project paper: A written piece that will

1) be entirely based on scholarly literature and other written and/or audiovisual sources (that is, not based on your own fieldwork);

2) develop your research project proposal into a full-fledged research paper;

3) reference at least 10 (for undergraduates) or 15 (for graduates) scholarly sources;

Your paper should

A) clearly introduce and present the tradition or topic under consideration;

B) develop a critical discussion and assessment of scholarly sources;

C) discuss the musical-religious traditions under consideration in the light of available theories and models of interpretation.

Length of paper: 3,000-4,000 words for undergraduate students; 4,000-5,000 for graduate students. Papers that do not respect these word limits will be downgraded by one full point on the letter grading scale (i.e. from A to A-, from A- to B+, etc). Likewise, unjustified late submissions will be penalized by one full point on the letter grading scale. Please submit your proposal both in hard copy and electronically (via email). DUE ON APRIL 13.

Assessment

Each assignment will be marked according to the numeric scale of evaluation given below. Individual assignment marks will be combined to obtain a final numeric grade, which will be rounded so as to obtain a corresponding final letter grade as shown below.

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

D 1.0

D- 0.7

F 0.0

The relative weight of each assignment on the overall grade is as follows:

Attendance and participation: 15%

Reading review: 10%

Reading presentations: 15% (7.5% each)

Final research project proposal (midterm): 10%

Final research project presentation: 15%

Final research paper: 35%