Write an essay on ONE of the following topics:
(a) Is it possible to know what someone else can hear?
(b) Discuss a musical tradition related to the sea.
(c) How has colonialism impacted on music? Give three examples.
You must explore the ideas from at least three authors from the Foundation and Further sections of the reading list. To explore an idea critically, consider:
– What is the core argument in the article/book?
– What are the strengths and weaknesses of that argument?
– How does that argument influence/have a bearing on your own argument?
Length: 1500 words*
Here you will find the readings for question A, B and C, depending on which we choose
Readings for A:
Compulsory Reading :Anahid Kassabian (2013), Chapter One of Ubiquitous Listening Affect, Attention, and Distributed Subjectivity, University of California Press
Steven Feld (2015), Acoustemology in Keywords in Sound , D. Novak and M. Sakakeny (eds.), pp. 12-21. Duke University Press
Further Reading:
Abigail Wood (2013), Sound, Narrative and the Spaces in between: Disruptive Listening in Jerusalem’s Old City in Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, Vol 6, pp. 286307, Brill
Deborah Kapchan (2017), Theorizing Sound Writing, Wesleyan University Press
Salom Voegelin (2010) Listening to Noise and Silence: Towards a Philosophy of Sound Art, Bloomsbury
Ari Y. Kelman (2010) Rethinking the Soundscape: A Critical Genealogy of a Key Term in Sound Studies inThe Senses and Society , Vol 5(2) pp. 212-234, Routledge (press “get access and log in using your Shibboleth institutional login. This will redirect you to a page where you can enter your SOAS login details to access the article).
Christine Guillebaud (2014), Toward an Anthropology of Ambient Sound, Routledge
Jonathan Sterne (2013), Soundscape, Landscape, Escape in Soundscapes of the Urban Past: Staged Sound as Mediated Cultural Heritage, pp. 181-194, Transcript Verlag
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B:Foundation-
Lisa Urkevich, Music and Traditions of the Arabian Peninsula: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar. New York: Routledge, 2015, pp. 152-177 (available below)
Charles Capwell, Contemporary manifestations of Yemeni-derived song and dance in Indonesia, Yearbook for Traditional Music 27 (1995), 76-89.
Further-Tina K. Ramnarine, (2004) Music in the Diasporic Imagination and the Performance of Cultural (Dis)placement in Trinidad, in K. Dawe (ed.), Island Musics , pp. 153-170.
Laith Ulaby (2012), “On the Decks of Dhows: Musical Traditions of Oman and the Indian Ocean World”, The World of Music New Series. Music in Oman: Politics, Identity, Time, and Space in the Sultanate, Vol 1(2) , pp. 43-62
Sugata Bose, (2006) Chapter One of A Hundred Horizons: The Indian Ocean in the Age of Global Empire, Harvard University Press
Michael N. Pearson (2006) Littoral Society: The Concept and the Problems, Journal of World History , Vol 17(4), pp. 353-373
Nasser Al-Taee (2005) Enough, Enough, Oh Ocean: Music of the Pearl Divers in the Arabian Gulf, Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, Vol 39(1), pp. 19-30
Isabel Hofmeyr (2007), The Black Atlantic Meets the Indian Ocean: Forging New Paradigms of Transnationalism for the Global South Literary and Cultural Perspectives, Social Dynamics, Vol 33(2), pp. 3-32
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C: Foundation-
Kofi Agawu, Representing African Music: postcolonial notes, queries, positions. (New York & London: Routledge, 2003), Chapter 1, Colonialisms Impact. [available online through the Library]
Michael Iyanaga, Why Saints Love Samba: A Historical Perspective on Black Agency and the Rearticulation of Catholicism in Bahia, Brazil, Black Music Research Journal, 35:1 (2015), pp. 119-147.
Further-
Justin A. Williams, Rapping Postcoloniality: Akalas The Thieves Banquet and Neocolonial Critique, Popular Music and Society, 40:1 (2017), 89-101, DOI: 10.1080/03007766.2016.1230457
James Q. Davies, Instruments of Empire, in J.Q. Davies and E. Lockhart (eds.) Sound Knowledge: Music and Science in London, 1789-1851 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016), pp. 145-174
David Smith, Colonial Encounters through the Prism of Music: A Southern African Perspective, International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music Vol. 33, No. 1 (Jun., 2002), pp. 31-55
Mhoze Chikowero, African Music, Power, and Being in Colonial Zimbabwe (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2015)
David Irving, Musical Politics of Empire: The Loa in 18th-Century Manila. Early Music 32: 3, 2004, pp. 385402.
Jim Sykes, Sound as Promise and Threat: Drumming, Collective Violence and Colonial Law in British Ceylon, in I. Biddle and K. Gibson (eds.), Cultural Histories of Noise, Sound and Listening in Europe (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017) pp. 127-151.
Seung-Ah Lee, Decolonizing Korean Popular Music: The Japanese Color Dispute over Trot, Popular Music and Society 40:1 (2017), pp. 102-110.
