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| Semester | spring semester 2024 |
| Course frequency | Once only |
| Lecturers | Assaf Shelleg (assaf.shelleg@unibas.ch, Assessor) |
| Content | Steve Reich. American. Minimalist. Post-minimalist. Postmodernist. Electronic music. Twelve-tone music. Post Serialism. Avantgarde. Gradual processes. Phases. Loops. Neotonalities. Jewish music. African music. Gamelan. Holocaust. 9/11. Radiohead. Any attempt to reduce the multilayered cultural phenomena that is Steve Reich into each of the above-listed words is guaranteed to fail. Reich exists in (and as) simultaneous formations that continuously change—that continuously accrue and lose meanings—and so no monolithic portrayal pertaining to “style” or “identity”, nor a single adjective can adequately grasp his aesthetic penchants, his mediators (human and non-human), his mediations, and ultimately his music. And Reich, needless to say, is a metonym for every other composer you may think of. In recent decades, Actor-Network Theory (ANT) has been changing the humanities and social sciences. ANT emerged in science and technology research in the 1980s at the same time when post-structuralist theories sought to undo old hierarchies that cultural practices themselves have been obstinately destabilizing. Focusing on modern and contemporary music, this seminar aims at applying ANT to archival work on modern and contemporary musics, and in turn learn how to assemble the simultaneities that constitute and condition these musics and compositional practices. All this does not mean that we will be dealing with unmanageable archival items, compositional aesthetics, music analysis, and numerous cross-disciplinary references. Rather, our matters of concern will always be restricted from without, yet thickened from within. To do so we will learn to recognize the human and non-human “actors” of a given network, to locate their agencies, their mediations, and to identify mediators and intermediaries—be it in a small concert series in the early 1980s in New York; in a given edition of the Darmstadt Ferienkurse; the agencies of MIDI in a designated place and time; a cluster of works written in a short period by a single composer or several composers; a given archival collection; or even a musical institution, and so forth. This seminar will discuss all that and more. While familiarizing ourself with various approaches to ANT, each student will be assigned a research project based on one of the collections held at the Paul Sacher Stiftung (PSS). Our goal would be to deal with both theory and practice, as we consider cultural and artistic phenomena that always (always!) exist in the plural. |
| Bibliography | Bruno Latour, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 1-86. Latour, Reassembling the Social, 87-120. Georgina Born, “On Musical Mediation: Ontology, Technology and Creativity,” Twentieth-century Music 2/1 (2005): 7-36. Orvar Löfgren, “Containing the Past, the Present and the Future: Packing a Suitcase,” Narodna Umjetnost 53/1 (2016): 59-74. Latour, Reassembling the Social, 121-156. Benjamin Piekut, “Actor-Networks in Music History: Clarifications and Critiques.” Twentieth-Century Music 11/2 (2014): 191-215. Rita Felski, “‘Context Stinks!’” New Literary History 42/4 (2011): 573–91. |
| Language of instruction | English |
| Use of digital media | No specific media used |
| Interval | Weekday | Time | Room |
|---|---|---|---|
| unregelmässig | See individual dates | ||
| Comments | 28.02. (2stündig, via ZOOM) 11.03. (MWS, Vortragssaal) 18.03. (MWS, Vortragssaal) 01.04. (MWS, Vortragssaal) 15.04 (2 ständig, via ZOOM) Genaue Zeiten werden noch bekannt geben. |
| Date | Time | Room |
|---|---|---|
| Wednesday 28.02.2024 | 14.00-16.00 | - Online Präsenz -, -- |
| Monday 11.03.2024 | 10.00-18.00 | Musikwissenschaft, Vortragssaal |
| Monday 18.03.2024 | 10.00-18.00 | Musikwissenschaft, Vortragssaal |
| Monday 01.04.2024 | 10.00-18.00 | Musikwissenschaft, Vortragssaal |
| Monday 15.04.2024 | 10.00-12.00 | - Online Präsenz -, -- |
| Modules |
Electives Bachelor Musicology: Recommendations (Bachelor's degree subject: Musicology) Modul: Grundlagen der Musikwissenschaft (Bachelor's degree subject: Musicology) Modul: Individuelle wissenschaftliche Vertiefung und musikwissenschaftliche Berufspraxis (Master's degree subject: Musicology) Modul: Materialitäten (Master's degree program: Cultural Techniques) |
| Assessment format | continuous assessment |
| Assessment details | Assignments ¦ Students are expected to read the materials before each meeting so that our sessions would be productive roundtable discussions wherein we learn from each other’s questions and insights, agreements and disagreements. Your active participation is also crucial for sharing your experience and intuitions at PSS, as you try to assemble a given network at PSS while experiencing the important and even constituent gaps between theory and practice (this includes me as well, as I too will be working at PSS throughout March and April). In this regard, your presentations throughout the different sessions are meant to help us turn this theorical class into an applied ANT seminar, while we grapple with methodological, historical, and historiographical issues on the ground. Students interested in earning additional 3 credits, can turn their research project into a paper. Please contact me in early April if you wish to do so. |
| Assessment registration/deregistration | Reg.: course registration; dereg.: not required |
| Repeat examination | no repeat examination |
| Scale | Pass / Fail |
| Repeated registration | no repetition |
| Responsible faculty | Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
| Offered by | Fachbereich Musikwissenschaft |