Advanced Methods in Cultural Theory and Musical Practice


Ethnomusicology Seminar 2621
Tuesday 3:00-5:30
Instructor: Andrew Weintraub
MB 206 (624-4184)
Office hours by appt.


        This seminar is designed to explore the ways in which the concept of culture has 
emerged as a focal point for interdisciplinary scholarship in ethnomusicology in both the 
humanities and the social sciences. We will explore the ways in which contemporary 
scholars study culture as social practice, the social relations of knowledge, and the roles of 
symbolic, subjective, and expressive practices in constituting as well as reflecting social 
relations. At the same time, we will examine the ways in which contemporary scholars 
connect cultural texts to social and historical contexts, trace the origins and evolution of 
cultural practices as social forces, and relate the aesthetic properties and the uses and effects 
of culture to social structures. Finally, we will address global displacements of social 
relations in the present era to examine how they affect the past, present, and future of 
ethnomusicological scholarship.


        Students are required to do all the readings and assignments, and to submit a final 
project. Books indicated by an asterisk are available for purchase at The Book Center; all 
other readings are on reserve in the Music Library.


Topics, Readings, and Assignments
[subject to minor changes]

Week 1 (9/1): Introduction

Week 2 (9/8): Culture, Identities, Music
Hall, Stuart. 1996. "The Question of Cultural Identity" In Modernity: An Introduction to 
Modern Societies, edited by Stuart Hall, David Held, Don Hubert, and Kenneth 
Thompson, 595-634. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers Inc.
Keil, Charles. 1998. "Applied Sociomusicology and Performance Studies." 
Ethnomusicology  303-321 (and responses from Kisliuk and Wong).
Manuel, Peter. 1994. "Puerto Rican Music and Cultural Identity: Creative Appropriation of 
Cuban Sources from Danza to Salsa." Ethnomusicology 38(2):249-280.
Nketia, J.H. Kwabena. 1981. "The Juncture of the Social and the Musical: The 
Methodology of Cultural Analysis." The World of Music 23(2):22-35.
John Shepherd. 1977. "Media, Social Process and Music" and "The 'Meaning' of Music" 
In Whose Music: A Sociology of Musical Languages, edited by John Shepherd, Phil 
Virden, Graham Vulliamy, Trevor Wishart, 7-68.  London: Latimer New Dimensions 
Ltd. 
Williams, Raymond.1990 (1977). "Culture" and "The Sociology of Culture" In Marxism 
and Literature, 11-20; 136-144. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Week 3 (9/15): Culture, Power, Knowledge
Buchanan, Donna. 1995. "Metaphors of Power, Metaphors of Truth: The Politics of Music 
Professionalism in Bulgarian Folk Orchestras." Ethnomusicology 39 (3):381-416.
Chow, Rey. "The Politics and Pedagogy of Asian Literatures in American Universities." 
differences 2(3):29-51.
Foucault, Michel. 1980. Power/Knowledge. Briughton, England: Harvester.
Nader, Laura. 1997. "The Phantom Factor: Impact of the Cold War on Anthropology" In 
The Cold War and the University: Toward and Intellectual History of the Postwar 
Years , 107-146. 
*Said, Edward. 1979. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books. [pp. 1-110]
Waterman, Christopher. 1991. "The Uneven Development of Africanist Ethnomusicology: 
Three Issues and a Critique" In Comparative Musicology and Anthropology of Music: 
Essays on the History of Ethnomusicology, edited by Bruno Nettl and Philip V. 
Bohlman, 169-186. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Gourlay, K.A. 1978. "Towards a Reassessment of the EthnomusicologistÕs Role in 
Research." Ethnomusicology January 1978:1-35.

Week 4 (9/22): The Dialogic Imagination
*Lipsitz, George. 1990. "Against the Wind" In Time Passages: Collective Memory and 
American Popular Culture, 99-132. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
Newcomb, Horace. 1984. "On the Dialogic Aspects of Mass Communication." Critical 
Studies in Mass Communication 1:34-50.
Ortner, Sherry. 1995. "Resistance and the Problem of Ethnographic Refusal." 
*Scott, James. 1990. Domination and the Arts of Resistance. New Haven: Yale University 
Press.

*Scott book review due

Week  5 (9/29): Race
Averill, Gage.1989. "Haitian Dance Bands, 1915-1970: Class, Race, and Authenticity" 
Latin American Music Review 10(2):203-35.
Dent, Gina, ed. 1992. Black Popular Culture. Seattle: Bay Press.
Hall, Stuart. 1996. "Race, Articulation, and Societies Structured in Dominance" In Black 
British Cultural Studies, edited by Houston A. Baker, Jr., Manthia Diawara, and Ruth 
Lindborg, 16-60. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lipsitz, George. 1998. "The Possessive Investment in Whiteness" In The Possessive 
Investment in Whiteness.
Monson, Ingrid.1990. "Forced Migration, Asymmetrical Power Relations and African-
American Music..." World of Music 32(3):22-45.
Omi, Michael, and Howard Winant. 1986. "Introduction" and "Introduction: Paradigms of 
race: ethnicity, class and nation" In Racial Formation in the United States: From the 
1960s to the 1980s, 1-24. New York and London: Routledge.

Class Presentation 1 (Averill)

Week 6 (10/6): Ethnicity
Hall, Stuart. 1996(1986)."GramsciÕs Relevance for the Study of Race and Ethnicity" In 
Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies, edited by David Morley and Kuan-
Hsing Chen, 411-440.
Flores, Juan. 1985. "Que Assimilated, Brother, Yo Soy AsimilaoÕ: The Structuring of 
Puerto Rican Identity in the U.S." The Journal of Ethnic Studies 13(3):1-16.
Lipsitz, George. 1990. "Cruising around the Historical Bloc" In Time Passages: Collective 
Memory and American Popular Culture, 133-162. Minnesota: University of Minnesota 
Press.
Omi, Michael, and Howard Winant. 1986. "Ethnicity  In Racial Formation in the United 
States: From the 1960s to the 1980s. New York and London: Routledge.

Class Presentation 2 (Flores)

Week 7 (10/13): Gender
Butler, Judith. 1990. "Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire" In Gender Trouble, 1-34;134-149. 
New York and London: Routledge.
Frith, Simon and Angela McRobbie. 1990.  "Rock and Sexuality" In On Record edited by 
Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin, 371-389. New York: Pantheon Books.
Morris, Meaghan. 1993. "Feminism, Reading, Postmodernism." In Postmodernism: A 
Reader edited and introduced by Thomas Docherty, 368-389. New York: Columbia 
University Press.
Ortner, Sherry. 1974. "Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?" In Woman, Culture, 
and Society, edited by Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere, 67-87.
Ortner, Sherry and Harriet Whitehead. 1981. "Introduction: Accounting for Sexual 
Meanings" In Sexual Meanings: The Cultural Construction of Gender and Sexuality, 
edited by Sherry Ortner and Harriet Whitehead, 1-27. Cambridge: Cambridge 
University Press.
Robertson, Carol. 1987. "Power and Gender in the Musical Experiences of Women" In 
Women and Music in Cross-Cultural Perspective, edited by Ellen Koskoff, 225-244. 
New York: Greenwood Press.
Shapiro, Anne Dhu. 1991. "A Critique of Current Research on Music and Gender." The 
World of Music 33(2):5-13.

Class Presentation 3 (Babiracki)

Week 8 (10/20): Class
*Keil, Charles.1994. "PeopleÕs Music Comparatively: Style and Stereotype, Class and 
Hegemony" In Music Grooves, edited by Charles Keil and Steven Feld, 197-217; 290-
328. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Lipsitz, George. 1990. "The Meaning of Memory:Family, Class, and Ethnicity in Early 
Network Television" In Time Passages: Collective Memory and American Popular 
Culture, 39-76. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
*Pena, Manuel.1985.  The Texas Mexican Conjunto:History of A Working-Class Music. 
Austin:University of Texas Press, Austin.

Class Presentation 4 (Pena)

Week 9 (10/27): Writing Culture
*Barz, Gregory andTimothy J. Cooley. 1997. Shadows in the Field: New Perspectives for 
Fieldwork in Ethnomusicology. New York: Oxford University Press. [introduction; 
and choose two articles each]
*Marcus, George E. and Michael M.J. Fischer. 1986. Anthropology as Cultural Critique. 
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Class Presentation 5 (Kisliuk or Bohlman)

Week 10 (11/3) Style, Performance, Representation
*Browning, Barbara. 1995.  Samba: Resistance in Motion. Bloomington: Indiana 
University Press.
Keil, Charles and Steven Feld. 1994. "One: Participation in Grooves" In Music Grooves, 
edited by Charles Keil and Steven Feld, 53-150. Chicago: The University of Chicago 
Press.
Lipsitz, George. 1990. "Mardi Gras Indians: Carnival and Counter-Narrative in Black New 
Orleans" In Time Passages: Collective Memory and American Popular Culture, 233-
256. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
Turino, Thomas. 1990. "Structure, Context, and Strategy in Musical Ethnography." 
Ethnomusicology 34(3):399-412.
*Browning book review due
Class Presentation 6 (Browning)
Week 11 (11/0) : Postmodernism
Baudrillard, Jean. 1983. "The Ecstacy of Communication" In The Anti-Aesthetic, edited by 
Hal Foster, 126-133. Port Townsend, WA: Bay Press.
Clifford, James. 1992. "Traveling Cultures" In Cultural Studies, edited by Lawrence 
Grossberg et al, 96-112. New York: Routledge. 
Habermas, Jurgen. 1993. "Modernity--An Incomplete Project" In Postmodernism: A 
Reader, edited by Thomas Docherty, 98-109. New York: Columbia University Press.
Jameson, Frederic. "Postmodernism and Consumer Society." 
Lyotard, "Answering the Question: What is Postmodernism?" In Postmodernism: A 
Reader,  edited by Thomas Docherty, 38-46. New York: Columbia University Press.
Manuel, Peter. 1995. "Music as Symbol, Music as Simulacrum: Postmodern, Pre-Modern, 
and Modern Aesthetics in Subcultural Popular Musics." Popular Music 14(2):227-240.

Week 12 (11/17): Postcoloniality, Trans/Nationalism
Bhaba, Homi. 1983. "Difference, Discrimination, and the Discourse of Colonialism" In 
The Politics of Theory, edited by F. Barker et al. Colchester: University of Essex.
Calhoun, Craig. 1995. "Nationalism and Difference: The Politics of Identity Writ Large" In 
Critical Social Theory, 231-282. Oxford: Blackwell.
Fanon, Frantz. 1995(1968). "National Culture" In The Post-Colonial Studies Reader, 
edited by Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin, 153-157. London and New 
York. 
*Kondo, Dorinne. 1997. About Face:Performing Race in Fashion and Theater. New York 
and London: Routledge.

*Kondo book review due

Week 13 (11/24): Media
Feld, Steven. 1994. "From Schizophonia to Schismogenesis..." In  Music Grooves, edited 
by Charles Keil and Steven Feld, 257-289. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Keil, Charles.1994. "Music Mediated and Live in Japan" In Music Grooves, edited by 
Charles Keil and Steven Feld, 247-256. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Weintraub, Andrew. 1997. "Mediations" In "Constructing the Popular: Superstars, 
Performance, and Cultural Authority in Sundanese Wayang Golek Purwa of West 
Java, Indonesia." PhD dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.
Wong, Deborah. "I Want the Microphone: Mass Mediation and Agency in Asian-American 
Popular Music." The Drama Review 38(3):152-167.

Week 14 (12/1) No class

Week 15 (12/8) In-class Presentations

Week 16 (12/15) TBA and final projects due


Course Requirements

Book reviews: James Scott, Dorinne Kondo, Barbara Browning. Books assigned to 
review are from disciplines other than music. Evaluate the relevance of the approaches 
developed in these books to the study of music (see Barzun on writing book reviews).

Class Presentations: Prepare and present a lecture in class (c. 30 minutes--leave 10 
minutes for discussion) for an undergraduate non-music-major course based on your 
choice of one of the following books or articles as your theoretical framework and source 
of data: Pena, Averill, Flores, Browning, Feld (chapter 4), Kisliuk (Shadows in the Field, 
chapter 2), Bohlman (Shadows in the Field, chapter 8), Babiracki (Shadows in the Field, 
chapter 7). Use audio-visual material whenever possible to illustrate your points (if 
necessary, schedule VCR in advance). You are also encouraged to use other sources to 
complement the material in the readings.

Journal of Keywords: Compile a list of theoretical concepts from the readings and class 
discussion. Define the terms, make reference to sources, and note their relevance to your 
work. Make a point to use these concepts and terminology in discussion. I will collect 
journals periodically.

Final Project (Choose one). Hand in a one-page proposal of your topic by October 27.

A) Compile an annotated bibliography of studies on a theoretical framework that relates to 
your dissertation from a cross-cultural perspective. Your bibliography should reflect an 
exhaustive search of the main journals in ethnomusicology, musicology, and popular 
music, as well as cultural studies, sociology, anthropology, and other relevant disciplines. 

B) Write a paper on a topic of your choice (in consultation with the instructor) which 
addresses the intersection of music and theoretical issues raised in this course. The paper 
should demonstrate your ability make use of theory, as discussed in class and in the 
readings. 

Grading Guidelines: Book reviews (30%); Class Presentation (5%); Journal of Keywords 
(10%); Final Project (40%); Participation (15%).