Unit information: Music and Sex in 2018/19

Unit name	Music and Sex
Unit code	MUSI20111
Credit points	20
Level of study	I/5
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
Unit director	Dr. Scheding
Open unit status	Open
Pre-requisites	Technical knowledge of music (ability to read notation fluently is essential; music A level or Associated board grade 8 or equivalent may be required)
Co-requisites	none
School/department	Department of Music
Faculty	Faculty of Arts

Description including Unit Aims

Charles Darwin posited that mankind started making music for the purpose of sex. While this provocative claim is no doubt a gross exaggeration, music’s relationship with sexuality specifically and gender and the body more widely is nonetheless worthwhile exploring. Indeed, gender and queer studies, for example, today occupy a prominent place amongst musicological debates. In this unit, we will explore music and sex from a range of perspectives. Considering genres ranging from operatic and orchestral to pop music, we will begin by investigating music’s depiction of the erotic, before turning to music and camp-ness. Next, we will consider how musicology has long sidelined the body, before turning our attention to issues of femininity and masculinity. Throughout the course, our thinking will increasingly be informed by key texts in musicological gender and queer studies.

This unit’s aims are:

1) to introduce students to a repertory of varying musical genres embracing both art music and popular styles through a consistent theoretical lens;

2) to hone students’ skills in critical and highly interdisciplinary thinking;

3) to allow students to engage with critical texts about music, sexuality and gender;

4) to develop students’ skills in critical listening;

5) to develop students’ skills in the oral and written presentation of their ideas

Intended Learning Outcomes

At the end of the unit, a successful student will:

1. Have acquired a good knowledge of the various forms, contexts, and functions of music in relation to sexuality and gender;
2. Write critically and perceptively about gender and queer studies in relation to music, and solidly back up own views with independently chosen examples;
3. Have acquired a solid knowledge of the scholarly discourses, methodologies, and terminologies of gender and queer studies;
4. Have acquired the ability to situate gender discourses of music within their socio-political context.
5. Be able to develop coherent arguments in both short and longer written forms
6. Be able to present information and coherent critique in verbal form.

Teaching Information

Weekly 2-hour seminars for the whole cohort.

Assessment Information

• 2,500 word essay (40%). ILO 1 - 5
• Individual workfile (30%). ILO 1 - 5

750-word blog entries for each of any five weeks of the unit, summarising the key points of the material encountered in pre-class reading and responding to it critically. Students must submit 5 posts in order to gain credit for the unit. Towards the end of the unit, students choose 3 entries to submit without revision as their workfile for a summative mark.

• In-class presentation of 10 minutes (30%). ILO 1, 3, 4, 6.

Reading and References

1. Marcia Citron, Gender and the Musical Canon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
2. Susan McClary Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, & Sexuality. 2nd. ed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002.
3. Susan Sontag, “Notes on ‘Camp’” Again Interpretation (1961)
4. Suzanne G. Cusick, 'Gender, Musicology, and Feminism', in Nicholas Cook and Mark Everist (eds), Rethinking Music (Oxford, 1999), pp. 471-98
5. Sydney Hutchinson, ‘Places of the body: Corporeal displacement, misplacement, and replacement in music and dance research.’ In Music and displacement: Diasporas, mobilities, and dislocations, eds. Erik Levi and Florian Scheding. Scarecrow Press, 2010, pp. 155-180.
6. Paul Robinson: Opera, Sex and Other Vital Matters. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002