Course Schedule (subject to change) 

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Week 1: Jan. 29 (M) & Jan. 31 (W) • Syllabus, Intro to Course, & Personal Narrative

• Due Jan. 31: Google Introduction Form (2 pts)

For Wednesday:

• Read: Clare, Eli. “In Tandem with Cure.” In Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure. 

Durham: Duke University Press, 2017. 

contains: discussion of ableism and abuse of disabled people.

• Read: Wark, McKenzie. “Xeno-Euphoria,” in Raving. Duke University Press, 2023.  You can also listen to “Happy Flesh” at https://mckenziewark.bandcamp.com/album/lonesome-cowgirl and follow along in the text!  

contains: mentions of sexual assault, sexual encounters, transphobia. 

• Read: Tongson, Karen. “Goodbye to Love.” In Why Karen Carpenter Matters. MIT 

Press, 2019. 

Week 2: Feb. 5 (M) & Feb. 7 (W) • Race, Gender, Sexuality, & Disability

For Monday: 

• Listen: Gender Reveal Episode 1: Gender 101 (or read transcript here)

• Watch: “Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw Defines Intersectionality.” YouTube, September 14, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWP92i7JLlQ. 

contains: discussions of intersecting sexism and racism

• Read: Morrison, Matthew D. (2017) The sound(s) of subjection: Constructing American popular music and racial identity through Blacksound, Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory, 27:1 (2017), 13-24.

contains: discussion of anti-Black racism in the construction of American popular music, use of historical racial slurs in discussion of blackface minstrelsy. 

For Wednesday: 

• no reading, just email me a song at [email protected] that you enjoy: we will listen to it in class and talk about it!

Week 3: Feb. 14 (W) • Pop Feminism Last Summer: Barbie, Beyoncé, & Taylor Swift

• Read: Brody, Richard. “‘Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour’ Is Intimate, Colossal, and Slightly Disappointing,” The New Yorker. October 16, 2023. 

• Read: Boström, Sally Anderson. “The Vibe Was Silver: Beyoncé Brings Afrofuturistic Feminism to the World Stage,” Ms. Magazine. 

• Read: Omise’eke, Natasha Tinsley, “Family Album: Making Lemonade Out of Marriage, Motherhood, and Southern Tradition: Queen Bee Blues.” Beyoncé in Formation: Remixing Black Feminism. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2018. 

contains: discussions of anti-Black racism and racist and sexual violence, description of experiences including use of racial slurs.  

• Due Feb. 14: Brief Musical Autobiography (1-2 pages, 10 pts). This is a personal narrative.   You can focus on a memory of a concert, a time making music in school or listening to music with friends or family, your earliest memory of music, your relationship to a genre, your listening tastes, etc. 

Week 4: Feb. 21 & 22 (W/Th) • Research, Citation, and Bibliography Workshop 

Zine workshop in class (2 pts). No reading for this week.

Week 5: Feb. 28 (W) • Masculinities & Race: Krip-Hop & Boy Bands

For Wednesday: 

• Read: Sasha, Geffen. “SCREAMING THE BEATLES: The First Boy Band Breaks the Gender Mold.” In Glitter Up the Dark: How Pop Music Broke the Binary, 13–26. University of Texas Press, 2020. 

• Read: this interview with Leroy Moore and Moore & Jones in Crip Authorship.

Week 6: Mar. 6 (W) • Gender, Electronic Music, & Afrofuturism *note, Wednesday will be on Zoom*

• Due Mar. 6: Research Topic Proposal and Preliminary Bibliography (1 paragraph + 3 or more formatted sources, 6 pts)

For Wednesday: Read one or two of the following:

• Rodgers, Tara. “Pauline Oliveros.” In Pink Noises. Duke University Press, 2010.
•  Riedel, Samantha. “Wendy Carlos’ Life and Work Show the Beauty (and Trauma) of Being Openly Trans,” Them. October 10, 2019. 
•  Valnes, Matthew “Janelle Monáe and Afro‐Sonic Feminist Funk.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 29, no. 3 (2017).
•  Murchison, Gayle. “Let’s Flip It! Quare Emancipations: Black Queer Traditions, Afrofuturisms, Janelle Monáe to Labelle.” Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture 22 (2018): 79-90.

Week 7: Mar. 11 (M) & Mar. 13 (W) • Race/Gender/Sexuality/Disability in Musical Theatre

For Monday: 

• Skim: Hoffman, Warren. “Overture.” In The Great White Way: Race and the Broadway Musical. Rutgers University Press, 2020. 

• Read: Tovey, Cara. “Performing Deaf Identity and Deaf Gain in Michael Arden’s 2015 Spring Awakening.” Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies 17, no. 1 (2023): 77-93. OR Das, Joanna Dee. “Choreographic Ghosts: Dance and the Revival of Shuffle Along.” Dance Research Journal 51, no. 3 (2019): 84-96. 

For Wednesday: 

• Read: Phillips, Maya. “‘A Strange Loop’ Review: A Dazzling Ride on a Mental Merry-Go-Round.” The New York Times, April 27, 2022. 
• Find and bring one album/show/concert review to discuss

Week 8: Mar. 18 (M) & Mar. 20 (W) • Mid-semester individual check-ins on Zoom 

• Sign up for a short individual meeting at this link (2 pts). 

Week 9: Mar. 25 (M) & Mar. 27 (W) •  Midterm Presentations

• Midterm presentations: From your concert program, present a video/audio clip of one of the pieces along with your introduction and your program note for the selected piece). (7 pts).
• Due Mar. 28: Concert Program with Program Notes (3-5 piece concert program with 1-3 paragraph introduction explaining the theme of your concert and 1-2 paragraphs per program note for each piece). (13 pts).

Week 10: Apr. 1 (M) & Apr. 3 (W, ZOOM) • Exploring the Review/Interview/Article through Florence Price & Lil Nas X

For Monday, read what you can of the following:

• Read: Maxile, Horace J. Jr. “Fantasie nègre: The Piano Music of Florence Price, by Samantha Ege.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 75, no. 2 (2022): 405-409. 

• Read: Tsioulcas, Anastasia. “These NYC kids have written the history of an overlooked Black female composer.” NPR. December 2, 2021.  

• Read: Ege, Samantha. “Florence Price and the politics of her existence.” The Kapralova Society Journal 16, no. 1 (2018): 1-10.
• Read: Mier, Tomás. “Lil Nas X’s L.A. Tour Stop Was A Vibrant, Unapologetically Queer Production.” Rolling Stone. October 20, 2022.
• Read: Zoladz, Lindsay. “Lil Nas X Reveals Himself on ‘Montero,’” The New York Times. September 21, 2021.
• Read: Jordan, Jamal. “Lil Nas X: ‘At first I felt a sense of responsibility. But now I just don’t care’ | British GQ, May 10, 2021. 

For Wednesday (on ZOOM w/guest: Gender Reveal Host Tuck Woodstock!): 

• Listen: One Gender Reveal episode of your choice. Prepare any questions for Tuck!

Week 11: Apr. 8 (M) & Apr. 10 (W) • Gender and Voice: Castrati & Gospel

For Monday: 

• Read: Wilbourne, Emily, ‘The Queer History of the Castrato’, in Fred Everett Maus, and Sheila Whiteley (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Music and Queerness (2022; online edn, Oxford Academic, 11 Jan. 2018).

For Wednesday:

• Read: Pennington, Stephan. “Willmer Broadnax, Midcentury Gospel, and Black Trans/Masculinities.” Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture 22, no. 1 (2018): 117–25.  OR listen: OFTV 8: Spirit of Gold

Week 12: Apr. 17 (W, Zoom):  Ballroom and Hip Hop

No Class Monday (Apr. 15) and class on Zoom on Wednesday (Apr. 17)

For Wednesday:

• Read: Kehrer, Lauron J. “Queer Articulations in Ballroom Rap.” In Queer Voices in Hip Hop: Cultures, Communities, and Contemporary Performance, 42–66. University of Michigan Press, 2022. 

• Come to class ready to discuss where you’re at in your Multimedia Article or Album/Concert Review. Come with questions for me and your classmates, and a draft of what you have, even if it’s just some notes. We can set aside time to work in class and talk more on this assignment.
• Due Apr. 21: Multimedia Article OR Album/Concert Review (2-3 pages, 13 pts). Write an article on a musician, a musical group, a musical genre, etc. Imagine you are writing it for a publication such as the NYT or Pitchfork or the Guardian. In the idiom of the form, include multimedia (pictures, videos, etc.) and in-text links to sources as citations. OR Review an album, concert, or show.

Week 13: Apr. 22, Apr. 24, April 29•  SPRING RECESS, NO CLASS

Week 14: Wednesday, May 1 • Dolly Parton

• Read: Hubbs, Nadine. “‘Jolene,’ Genre, and the Everyday Homoerotics of Country Music: Dolly Parton’s Loving Address of the Other Woman.” Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture 19 (2015): 71-76. https://doi.org/10.1353/wam.2015.0017. OR listen: The Only One For Me, Jolene | Dolly Parton’s America | WNYC Studios 
• Read: “Why Everyone Is Arguing About Beyoncé’s Cover of ‘Jolene'” .

Week 15: May 6 (M) & May 8 (W) •

M: In-Class Writing Exercises — bring anything you’re currently struggling with/working on!

W: Peer Review Party (with cookies!)

• Due May 8: Draft of Research Paper (4-6 pages + bibliography, 13 pts)

•  Sign up for end-of-semester individual check-ins either on May 13 (M) or May 15 (W)

Week 16: May 13 & May 15 • End-of-semester individual check-ins on Zoom

• Due May 22: Final Writing Portfolio (30 pts)