Music Anthropology

This course is a selective introduction to anthropology and related, influential strands of high/critical theory, on one hand, and the changing relation of both to the study of music and the field of ethnomusicology, on the other. After an opening situating the course's origin and content in university and broader intellectual currents, we will proceed through a series of modules focused on particular issues and approaches: culture; society; research paradigms and theory; ethnography; intellectual crises and questions; the emergent field known as sound studies; and, finally, anthropological studies of art and music. Rather than providing a comprehensive survey, then, this course presents students with a series of paths they might fruitfully explore further, a set of tools for navigating the heterogeneous, distributed nature of fields with ever-proliferating sub-fields and research/writing paradigms.