Seminar in Ethnomusicology - 2nd semester
Code
73202103
Academic unit
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
Department
Ciências Musicais
Credits
10
Teacher in charge
Salwa Castelo Branco
Weekly hours
2
Teaching language
Portuguese
Objectives
a) To familiarize students with the main theoretical and methodological paradigms in modern
Ethnomusicology, in the perspective of the main currents in Social Sciences and Humanities, with a special
attention to Anthropology and Cultural Studies.
b) To discuss epistemological, methodological and ethical questions central to ethnomusicological research.
c) To analyze publications that represent the main theoretical paradigms in the discipline.
Prerequisites
None.
Subject matter
a) The main epistemological changes in Ethnomusicology: post-modernism, post-colonialism, and critical
theory.
b) Analysis of the impact of the adoption of new epistemological perspectives in the ethnomusicological
approach of central issues of the last twenty years, such as: globalization of musical production and
consumption; the contribution of expressive culture for the construction of diasporic communities and for
their interaction; musical processes in the colonial encounters; integration of periphery musics in the global
market; maintenance and appropriation of Western aesthetical hierarchies; reproduction or contestation of
power relations through music.
c) Critical analysis of main works where today´s ethnomusicological paradigms are patent.
Bibliography
Bohlman, Philip & Radano, Ronald (eds.) (2000). Music and the Racial Imagination. Chicago: Chicago
University Press.
Born, Georgina & Hesmondhalgh D, (eds) (2000). Western Music and its Others: Difference, Representation
and Appropriation in Music. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Erlman, Veit (1999). Music, Modernity and the Global Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Slobin M. (1993). Subcultural Sounds: Micro- musics of the West. Hanover, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Stokes, Martin (2004). Music and the Global Order, Anual Review of Anthropology 33: 47-72.
Teaching method
Presentation of the main subjects by the teacher.
In-class critical discussions.
Student oral presentations of critical reviews of some of the most representative publications.
Evaluation method
Participation in class 20%
Critical Reviews 30%
Written essay 50%