5/3--FINAL PAPERS DUE AT 5PM, IN DIGITAL DROPBOX

Thanks for a great semester!!!

April 26--LAST CLASS, Class presentations part II

Same assignment as last time--watch the videos included on this GoogleDoc, post a question (or 2) on one or more of them, no artifact discussion.

https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AQVbz7yQ99-dZGZoNDY0NnpfMTZnOHo1dnpjZg&hl=en

April 21--Class Presentations Part I

To see the videos for Day 1 of Class Presentations, go here:

https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AQVbz7yQ99-dZGZoNDY0NnpfMTNoaG1oYm42Yg&hl=en

For posting: one or 2 questions about one of the videos, or about the videos as a whole. (No artifact posting)

April 19--Falsetto Men

Reading:

• Alice Echols (2010) “The Homo Superiors: Disco and the Rise of Gay Macho,” Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture

Listening:

• Tracks by Sylvester and Disco Tex & His Sexolettes on Blackboard

Viewing:

• Sylvester "You Make Me Feel" video above

April 14--The Boy Band Boy

Reading:
Hawkins, Stan. “[Un]Justified: Gestures of Straight-Talk in Justin Timberlake’s Songs.” In Oh Boy! Masculinities and Popular Music, edited by Freya Jarman-Ivens, 197-212. New York: Routledge, 2007.

Listening/Viewing:

• Justin Timberlake: "Rock Your Body," "Cry Me A River," "Right for Me," "Never Again" (tracks available in Blackboard)
• (optional) Timberlake & Beyonce: "Single Ladies" 

April 12-Guest: Dr. Mark Anthony Neal

*Note: You only need to do a question for this post. Also, a reminder that, as of 4/7, papers are now due **Wed, Apr 13 11:59PM**

Viewing (optional):

• Neal talking about Michael Jackson's legacy in video above. It is long (around 50 min) but fascinating. He talks specifically about MJ & masculinity at 25:20.

Reading:

• Neal (2003) "Diggin' the Scene (With the Gangsta Lean)," from Songs in the Key of Black Life: A Rhythm and Blues Nation
• Neal (2001) “Another Man Is Beating My Time: Gender and Sexuality in Rhythm and Blues,” from American Popular Music: New Approaches to the Twentieth Century

Listening:

• Bilal Sayeed Oliver "Soul Sista," "Fast Lane," "For You"
• Curtis Mayfield, "Freddie's Dead"

April 7--MJ!!!

Reading:

• Cynthia Fuchs (1995) “Michael Jackson’s Penis,” from Cruising the Performative: Interventions into the Representation of Ethnicity, Nationality and Sexuality, ed. by Sue-Ellen Case, Philip Brett, and Susan Leigh Foster

Viewing/Listening:

• MJ, "In the Closet," "Beat It," "Thriller"

April 5--Guest Speaker: Dr. Jeremy Smith, Duke Jazz Archivist

*For this class, you are only required to post a question.*

3 Short Readings on Blackboard:

• Amiri Baraka, "Black Woman," from Raise, Race, Rays, Raze: Essays Since 1965
• Amiri Baraka, "Jim Brown on the Screen," from Spirit Reach
• Pearl Cleage, "Mad at Miles," from The Miles Davis Companion

March 31-Female Masculinity

Reading:

• Shana Goldin-Perschbacher (2008) “’The World Has Made Me the Man of My Dreams’” Meshell NdegéOcello and Black Female Masculinity,” from Sexuality, Listening, and Intimacy: Gender Transgression in Popular Music, 1993-2008, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia

Viewing:

• MeShell NdegéOcello "Boyfriend" and "Pocketbook" videos above

Listening:

• NdegéOcello tracks on Blackboard

Posting can be on one or both of videos, or one or more of the audio tracks.

March 29--Kinging

Readings:

• Francesca Britain (2006) “Women Who ‘Do Elvis’: Authenticity, Masculinity, and Masquerade,” Popular Music & Society
• Diane Torr (2010) “Man for a Day: A Do-It-Yourself Guide,” from Sex Drag, and Male Roles: Investigating Gender as Performance

Viewing:

• Youtube viewing/listening: The Mighty Slim Pickins, “Thirteen Times” and “Stray Cats”; Janny James, "Hound Dog"

March 24--Kurt Cobain cont'd

Note that this is a change from the syllabus.

Reading:

• Jan Muto (1995) "He Was The Woman Of His Dreams: Identity, Gender, and Kurt Cobain," Popular Music & Society 19(2)

Viewing:

• Both versions of video "In Bloom" posted above (from 1991 album Nevermind)
• Optional viewing: Alternate "all dress" version of "In Bloom" below

Artifact for posting:

• "In Bloom" music video or "Dive" live performance, both posted above

March 22--Kurt Cobain

Readings:

• Simon Frith (1994) “The Voice,” from Performing Rites
• Kurt Cobain, excerpts from Journals

Listening:

• Nirvana tracks on Blackboard, (also, video above gives a sense of Cobain's emotional range)

Posting:

• Cobain's Journals excerpts

For Class Discussion:

• How can Frith's article be used to understand Cobain's writings, lyrics, singing and performance style?

March 17--The Crooner Part II (Jeff Buckley)

Reading:

• Shana Goldin-Perschbacher (2007) “’Not with You But of You’: ‘Unbearable Intimacy’ and Jeff Buckley’s Transgendered Vocality,” from Oh Boy! Masculinities and Popular Music

Listening:

• Jeff Buckley: “Mojo Pin,” “Hallelujah,” “The Way Young Lovers Do”

Posting:

• One of the songs on Blackboard

March 15-- The Crooner, Part I (Rudy Vallee)

Reading:

• Allison McCracken (2001) “Real Men Don’t Sing Ballads: The Radio Crooner in Hollywood, 1929-1933,” from Soundtrack Available: Essays on Film and Popular Music, ed. Pamela Robertson Wojcik and Arthur Knight
• "Singing Teachers Condemn Crooning," New York Times, 23 February 1932, p 19
• "Full-Voiced Singers Encroach on Popularity of the Crooners," New York Times, 1 May 1932, p. X10

Listening:

• Rudy Vallee, “Would You Like to Take a Walk,” “Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries,” "I Love the Moon"
• Bing Crosby “I Surrender Dear”

Artifact posting is on either:

• one of the New York Times articles-----or
• comparison of Vallee's and Crosby's singing voice (based on the Blackboard tracks)

NOTE: If your comment doesn't show up right away, don't worry--it just means I have to take it out of the spam folder.

March 3-The Cockrocker Part II

**Film Screening Wed, March 2, 8PM, Lilly Library Room 103: This Is Spinal Tap (1984)**
(If you can't make the screening, you can check out one of their VHS copies)

You'll have until Thursday at noon to post for this one.

Reading:
--Carl Plantinga (1998) “Gender, Power, and a Cucumber: Satirizing Masculinity in This Is Spinal Tap,” Documenting the Documentary: Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video, ed. Barry Keith Grant and Jeannette Sloniowski

Artifact:
--The artifact for the posting in this case is the movie.

Also, I double-checked my 1970s body language books for the seated "male" pose we discussed, and yikes! A few examples below:




=




Apparently, in the 1970s U.S., women manifested negative evaluation this way:

March 1 - The Cockrocker

Reading:

• Sheila Whiteley (1997) “Little Red Rooster v. the Honky Tonk Woman: Mick Jagger, Sexuality, Style and Image,” from Sexing the Groove

Listening:

• Rolling Stones, “Cocksucker Blues” (available as youtube recording above)

Optional:

• Steve Waksman (1996) “’Every Inch of My Love: Led Zeppelin and the Problem of Cock Rock,” Journal of Popular Music Studies

Feb 24-Hipsters cont'd & Cockrockers

Reading:

• Steve Waksman (1999) “Kick Out the Jams! The MC5 and the Politics of Noise,” from Instruments of Desire

Listening:

• MC5, “Rocket Reducer No. 62”

Feb 22-The Hipster

NOTE: For this week, post discussion questions, but no artifact postings (to give you more time to work on papers)

Readings:

• Ingrid Monson (2003) “The Problem with White Hipness: Race, Gender, and Cultural Conceptions,” Journal of the American Musicological Society
• Barbara Ehrenreich (1983) "The Beat Rebellion: Beyond Work and Marriage," The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment
• Mark Greif, "What Was the Hipster?," New York Magazine, 24 October 2010

Listening:

• Hipster music of your choice (using your personal definition of hipster)

Feb 17-Jimi Hendrix Part II

Reading:

• Maureen Mahon (2004) “Jimi Hendrix Experiences,” from Right to Rock: The Black Rock Coalition and the Cultural Politics of Race

*Note: The BRC that Mahon mentions in the chapter refers to the Black Rock Coalition, a non-profit organization supporting black musicians working in rock genres. See link on the right hand site of this post under "Useful Links."

Listening:

• Jimi Hendrix, “If 6 Was 9”
• Living Colour, "Elvis Is Dead"

Feb 15-Jimi Hendrix

Reading:

• Steve Waksman (1999) “Black Sound, Black Body: Jimi Hendrix, the Electric Guitar and the Meanings of Blackness,” Popular Music and Society. Focus especially on second half of article.

Listening:

• Jimi Hendrix tracks, “Star-Spangled Banner” (Woodstock version); "Voodoo Child (Slight Return);" or any others posted on Blackboard
• The "Voodoo Chile" track that Waksman mentions is the video above

Feb 10-Elvis, Post-Army

Reading:

• Freya Jarman-Ivens (2007) “’Don’t Cry, Daddy’: The Degeneration of Elvis Presley’s Musical Masculinity,” from Oh Boy! Masculinities and Popular Music

Listening:

• Elvis Presley (Excerpts from Aloha from Hawaii, in Blackboard)

Feb 8-The Teen Idol (Beatlemania)

Reading:

• Norma Coates (2007) “Teenyboppers, Groupies, and Other Grotesques: Girls and Women and Rock Culture in the 1960s and early 1970s,” Journal of Popular Music Studies
• Barbara Ehrenreich, Elizabeth Hess, Gloria Jacobs (1991) “Beatlemania: Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media, ed. Lisa A. Lewis
• David Dempsey (1964) “Why the Girls Scream, Weep, Flip,” New York Times, 23 February 1964, SM15

Viewing:

• Videos of Beatles fans, listed to the right of this post, under "Period Film Clips"  (these are the artifacts for the posting)

Feb 3 - Elvis Part II

Reading:

• David R. Shumway (1997) “Watching Elvis: The Male Rock Star as Object of the Gaze,” The Other Fifties: Interrogating Midcentury American Icons
• Sue Wise (1984) "Sexing Elvis," Women's Studies International Forum

Listening:

• "Hound Dog," versions by Elvis Presley and Big Mama Thornton

Posting:

• Compare the Presley & Thornton recordings. (Don't worry so much about connecting the recordings to the readings for this one) There is a video of Thornton performing the song above, but I'd prefer you listened to the version posted on Blackboard (which is of higher recording quality). I'd especially recommend that you listen with headphones in a quiet room.

Feb 1 - Elvis, Part I

Reading:

• Karal Ann Marling (1994) “When Elvis Cut his Hair: The Meaning of Mobility,” As Seen on TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s”

Artifact for posting:

• One of the videos below. (Disregard what syllabus says about listening/posting)

Jan 27- The Soldier, Part II

USMC advertisement--heavy metal soundtrack starts at around 0:40

Reading:

• Jonathan Pieslak (2009) “Music as an Inspiration for Combat,” and “Metal and Rap Ideologies in the Iraq War,” from Sound Targets: American Soldiers and Music in the Iraq War

Listening (all available on Blackboard):

• Eminem, “Go to Sleep” 
• Drowning Pool, “Let the Bodies Hit the Floor” 
• Bloodhound Gang “The Roof Is on Fire”
• Metallica, “The Four Horsemen,” “Seek and Destroy,” “One” 
• Slayer, “Bloodline”

Optional:

• Listen to clips from Pieslak's interviews with soldiers about the use of music in the war: http://jon.pieslak.com/asom/

January 25-The Soldier, Part I

Reading:

• Walter Spalding, "Music as a Necessary Part of the Soldier's Equipment," The Outlook (June 5, 1918)
• Fullerton Waldo, “Music and the War,” The Outlook (19 January 1916)
• Christina Gier (2008) “Gender, Politics, and the Fighting Soldier's Song in America during World War I,” Music and Politics
• Carol Burke (1989) “Marching to Vietnam,” Journal of American Folklore

Listening:

• “Over There,” “Good-bye Broadway,” and “Joan of Arc” (all available as links on p. 8 of Gier article)

*Artifact posting may be on one of the Outlook articles, or on one of the songs

NOTE: If you do not read music and/or are unfamiliar with some of the musical terminology in the Gier article, do not worry--just do the best you can and try to figure out what the overarching points are of those paragraphs.

Jan 20-Space Age Pop & Exotica (Bachelors, Husbands & Playboys II)

Readings:

• Shuhei Hosokawa (1999) “Martin Denny and the Development of Musical Exotica,” from Widening the Horizon: Exoticism in Post-War Popular Music
• Barbara Ehrenreich (1983) “Breadwinners and Losers: Sanctions Against Male Deviance” and “Playboy Joins the Battle of the Sexes,” from The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment

Listening:

• Tracks by Juan García Esquivel, Martin Denny available on Blackboard

NOTE: If your comment doesn't immediately show up after you click post & type in the word verification, do not worry. All posts get emailed to me regardless of whether they show up in the "comments" field.

January 18-Bachelors, Husbands & Playboys, Part I

Readings (both available on Blackboard):

• Keir Keightley (1996) “’Turn It Down!,’ She Shrieked: Gender, Domestic Space, and High Fidelity, 1948-1959,” Popular Music
• Liner notes to The Esquire Album of Music for the Continental Host (RCA Victor, 1957)

Also, study the album cover above.