Archived: 2021-2022 Graduate Course Listings

• PROFESSOR: William Echard
• DESCRIPTION:
• METHOD OF EVALUATION:
• READINGS:

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• PROFESSOR: James K. Wright
• DESCRIPTION: The research process, including the phases of conceptualization, gathering of sources, and writing up the completed research. Topics include: issues related to applying interdisciplinary methodologies to musical objects of study, conducting ethnographic research, and writing for scholarly publications, conference presentations, and grant applications.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: Assignments, Reading responses, Presentations, Attendance/Participation
• READINGS: TBA

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• PROFESSOR: Paul Théberge
• DESCRIPTION: Over the past two decades, Sound Studies has become established as an interdisciplinary field of scholarship – a field that encompasses a diverse range of objects of study addressed through an equally diverse range of disciplinary concerns and methodologies.  While music falls within the range of phenomena investigated within sounds studies, music is neither its primary focus nor the termination point of much of the theorizing within the field.  Nevertheless, adopting some of the theoretical perspectives found within sound studies is useful in challenging how we think about music and, conversely, music may allow us to discuss and analyze some of the limits of sound studies as it has come to be defined in recent years.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: Class Presentations, participation in discussions, a final paper.
• READINGS: There is no textbook for this course; all readings will be made available on BrightSpace.

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• PROFESSOR: Jeremy Strachan
• DESCRIPTION:  This seminar explores music’s powerful efficacy as a means of creating and maintaining identity/identities across a range of social, cultural, and political horizons. We will look at how identity maps onto a complex and intersecting array of individual, local, national, and international geographies, and how music articulates and affirms notions of self, place, nation, and diasporic/trans-local identities. Identity (latin, idem=same) as it coheres in and around music can not only mark a sense of belonging to various social and cultural formations, but can also signal crucial moments of difference, resistance, and resurgence.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: Students will be evaluated based on attendance, participating in class discussion, presenting weekly readings, writing and presenting a final research project.
• READINGS: Students will read selections from various disciplinary literatures (musicology/ethnomusicology, cultural studies, critical theory, etc)

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• PROFESSOR: Anna Hoefnagles
• DESCRIPTION: Through various case studies, this course examines the diversity of musics found in Canada and the ways that music facilitates belonging and/or exclusion to community. We engage with critical analyses of diversity and multiculturalism narratives in Canada and the ways that settler-colonialism influenced and continues to inform musical priorities and expressions.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: Weekly reading assignments, participation in classroom discussion, presentations, independent research project.
• READINGS: The majority of readings will be drawn from Contemporary Musical Expressions in Canada, edited by Hoefnagels, Klassen and Johnson (2019).

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• PROFESSOR: Ellen Waterman
• DESCRIPTION: Made in Canada, eh? But what does that mean when we look beyond top-40 music charts? How do contemporary creative musical and sonic practices contribute to dialogue on major social and cultural themes like anti-racism, decoloniality, cultural diversity, gender expression, and equitable participation? How do Canadian musicians and sound artists animate local, national, and international music scenes?  This course examines innovative, contemporary musical and sonic creative practices in Canada across diverse genres from art to jazz to pop, including their intersections with technology, movement, text, and visual media. “Creative practice” highlights the processes involved in composition, improvisation, and performance. With an emphasis on creative practice as social practice, we will take an intersectional approach to analyzing the sociality of music and sound art in the Canadian context.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: Evaluation will be based on participation, seminar presentations, and a major assignment. Students will learn about practice-based research methods and will have the opportunity to do a creative project for their major assignment. Historical or analytical papers are also welcome.
• READINGS: Course materials will be available on Brightspace and online. Close listening/viewing is as important to the course as readings.

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• PROFESSOR: Carolyn Ramzy
• DESCRIPTION: This course examines music’s potential to solve or exacerbate contemporary social, political, and environmental conflicts. Through critical and interdisciplinary readings on governance, power, and agency, we will broadly investigate the question: what are the potentials of music to empower, or simply, to take power away? We will explore case studies from around the world and the role of music in various contexts: structural bias and systemic discrimination; war and conflict; forced/voluntary migration; disease and healing; violence and poverty; and finally climate change and the environment.
• METHOD OF EVALUATION: Class participation, Bibliography Assignment, Paper Proposal, and Final Paper
• READINGS: TBA

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