Course Description
Examination of music videos from the 1980s until the present. Music videos will be treated as texts from which we can glean cultural understanding as well as explore new ways of analyzing aesthetic communication and musical meaning.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
Graduate students will complete additional reading assignments
of a more theoretical nature, and will be expected to
illustrate a mastery and synthesis of the reading materials
through weekly response essays. (Undergraduates are only
required to respond to one of the readings). Drawing from the
theory and analytical skills learned in class and in the
readings, students taking this course at the 6000 level will
write an independent analysis of a music video selected by the
instructor in addition to the midterm essay assigned to the
entire class. This midterm analysis will help to prepare
students for their final papers, in which graduate students are
expected to rely heavily on their own primary source research.
Athena Title
Gender and Music Video
Equivalent Courses
Not open to students with credit in WMST 4310W, MUSI 4310W
Prerequisite
Third-year or fourth-year student standing or permission of department.
Semester Course Offered
Offered spring
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
Upon successful completion of this course, students will possess a theoretical toolkit which will allow them to analyze musical and visual media in terms of gender theory, popular music studies, postmodern theory, and musical analysis.
Topical Outline
Week One: About Music Video Week Two: Some Theoretical Models (Postmodernism, Gender Theory) Week Three: Analytical Models Week Four: Male-Address Video Week Five: Masculinity, Androgyny, and Gender Bending Week Six: The Gendered Gaze and Female-Address Video Week Seven: Two Case Studies: Madonna and k.d. lang Week Eight: Stardom and Identity Week Nine: Music Video and Social Criticism Week Ten: The Body: Empowerment or Objectification? Week Eleven: Pornography and Prostitution Week Twelve: Militant Masculinity and Orientalism Week Thirteen-Fifteen: Final Projects