Women and Music in World Cultures
MUSHL250 and WOMST200.67
I. Course Description
An ethnomusicological study of women and music in cross-cultural perspective.
II. Course Objectives
This course is concerned with how and why music is structured, performed, and experienced through
gender. Adopting a global approach, it emphasizes local aesthetic systems and considers how they
serve as reservoirs from which women draw as they create, shape and manipulate expressive culture.
In an effort to place ethnomusicology in dialogue with feminist scholarship in other disciplines, the
course examines also the major feminist frameworks in terms of their potential for socio-musical
analyses.
Specific objectives are to study the literature on music and gender in order:
1. To discover its epistemological foundations.
2. To understand musical symbolism, socio-musical structures and individual musicians' gender
statuses as starting points for distinct processes through which women's musical lives are produced.
3. To assess the research programs that studies of women and music have followed in terms of their
limitations and achievements.
4. To engage (critique, affirm, modify, combine, etc.) the analytical frameworks of women's studies as
ways of understanding women and music in world cultures.
III. Course Format
The source of class discussions is a mix of classical and contemporary ethnomusicological writings
and musical works that relate the major feminist theoretical frameworks to musical issues. Class
sessions may be led by student panels as well as by the instructor. It is imperative that each student be
prepared at every class session with the assigned reading and listening.
IV. Textbooks
The textbook for this course is:
Moisala, Pirkko and Beverly Diamond. Music and Gender. Champaign-Urbana: University of
2000
Illinois Press.
V. Assignments
A. Reading: Required reading assignments are listed on the outline. They are in books on reserve or
non- circulating periodical literature in the stacks. Some periodical literature may be accessed at
JSTOR.
B. Listening Assignments: For each topic there will be a listening assignment. Assigned recordings are
at the reserve desk in the library.
C. Written Assignments: The core of the grade for this class will be based on written assignments. Oral
recitations and classroom participation in the discussions are especially important. There are five major
written assignments with submission deadlines scheduled throughout the semester. During the final
examination period the class will present, as a group project, the results of research and analysis into a
topic to be collectively chosen. There will be some in-class writing assignments based on the assigned
reading.
VI. Grading Policy
Grades for this course will be determined on the basis of the following approximate formula:
Participation in class discussions and oral project 25%
Five written projects at 15% each
75%