|
|
|
||
|
Last update: Mgr. Vít Zdrálek, Ph.D. (13.02.2024)
Those of you who are going to attend the course physically, please note that it takes place in the Klementinum building of the National Library, room number 230. If you are not a registered user of the National Library already, please do - for a friendly price - register in order to get to the course's venue physically (does not apply to online participants). As a bonus, besides access to millions of books and the library's premises, you will be able to use a number of online academic and non-academic music databases, including the ones providing streaming of rare music recordings. --- There are two possible readings of the course title. One reads Decolonizing African Music, the other Decolonizing South African Music Studies. The first suggests general field of interest, the other including the bracketed words reminds us, first, that there always already is a more or less sophisticated understanding (the ‘Studies’ part) before we even begin to listen, that there is no music per se, no sound ever without meaning and, second, that we can’t stereotypically speak about essentialized ‘Africa’ or ‘African music’ but need focus (‘South’ as a case study here). Why do we need to decolonize our thinking about African music? Because, as any other cultural practice, it is inevitably situated. It is us listening through our complex historical experience, always listening ‘from somewhere’. In our case, this somewhere happens to be Europe, Central and Eastern Europe in particular, with its direct or less direct past and to some extent presence shaped under the conditions of coloniality. Our aesthetic experience of African performing arts as listeners and spectators is inevitably steeped in aural and visual colonial imagination. The language we speak, its structures and words we use too need to be laboured against the grain - to be re-invented anew and to make us better informed and more attentive ears of the world. The course work is based on class discussions of prescribed reading, listening and watching. The students are asked to submit regular short written reaction papers and a longer final paper by the end of the semester, and to present (live or pre-recorded) the paper’s material and main arguments during final presentation in the exam period. The course will be taught in English in a hybrid form open to students of the Charles University and other universities via the virtual mobility scheme. The whole course is accessible virtually via MS Teams (lectures, seminars, materials, examination, presentation etc.). As part of the virtual mobility scheme, the course belongs to the flagship 2, Europeanness: multilingualism, pluralities, citizenship, developing especially the transversal skill 3 – critical thinking about Europeanness as a relational notion evolved in historical entanglement with coloniality. |
|
||
|
Last update: Mgr. Vít Zdrálek, Ph.D. (19.02.2024)
Prescribed reading There is alternative choice for most classes so you do not have to read (or react to) all these texts, check the syllabus. Further/optional reading will be regularly recommended at every class. Agawu, Kofi. 1995. The Invention of "African Rhythm"." Journal of the American Musicological Society 48(3), 380–95. Agawu, Kofi. 2008. “Meki Nzewi and the discourse of African musicology: a 70th birthday appreciation“, Journal of the Musical Arts in Africa 5(1), 1–18. Agawu, Kofi. 2016. “Tonality as a Colonizing Force in Africa. In Radano R. and Olaniyan T. (eds.), Audible Empire: Music, Global Politics, Critique. Durham; London: Duke University Press, 334–356. Allen, Lara. 2002. “Seeking the Significance of Two 'Classic' South African Jazz Standards: Sound, Body, Response”, English Studies in Africa 45, 91–108. Ballantine, Christopher J. 2012 (1993). Marabi nights: jazz, ‘race’ and society in early apartheid South African. Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press. Biko, Steve. 2002 (1978). I Write What I Like. e-book, The University of Chicago Press. Comaroff, Jean, and John L. Comaroff. 2012. “Theory from the South: Or, how Euro-America is Evolving Toward Africa.” Anthropological forum 22(2), 113–131. Dalamba, Lindelwa. 2018. “Beyond the Seam: Comrades, Compromises and Collisions in Todd Matshikiza's 'Jazz' Worlds”, SAMUS: South African music studies 38(1), 301–334. Dalamba, Lindelwa. 2019. “The Blue Notes: South African jazz and the limits of avant-garde solidarities in late 1960s London”, Safundi 20(2), 213–238. Koapeng, Mokale A. 2014. I Compose What I Like: Challenges Facing A Black Composer in the South African Choral Field. M.A. theses, University of the Witwatersrand.
Lucia, Christine and Grant Olwage. 2018. “The Joshua Pulumo Mohapeloa Critical Edition: an interview with Christine Lucia.” South African music studies: SAMUS 36-37(1), 157–177. Lucia, Christine. 2011. ”Joshua Pulumo Mohapeloa and the Heritage of African Song”. African Music: Journal of the International Library of African Music 9(1), 56–86. Lucia, Christine. 2020. “Michael Mosoeu Moerane in the Museum”, Fontes Artis Musicae 67(3), 187–215. Mbembe, Achille. 2015. Decolonizing Knowledge and the Question of the Archive. Public lecture. Mignolo, Walter D. 2009. “Epistemic Disobedience: Independent Thought and De-Colonial Freedom”. Theory, Culture and Society 26(7), 1–23. Muller, Carol A. and Sathima Bea Benjamin. 2011. Musical Echoes: South African Women Thinking in Jazz. Durham: Duke University Press. Muller, Carol. 2007. “Musical Echoes of American Jazz: Towards a Comparative Historiography”, Safundi 8(1), 57–71. Ndaliko, Chérie Rivers. 2021. “Music of Sub-Saharan Africa” In Romen, T. and Nettl, B. (eds.), Excursions in World Music, Eighth Edition. New York: Routledge, 354–386. Pistorius, Juliana M. 2017. “Eoan, Assimilation, and the Charge of “Coloured Culture”“, SAMUS: South African Music Studies 36/37, 389–415. Pistorius, Juliana M. 2019. “Inhabiting Whiteness: The Eoan Group La traviata, 1956,” Cambridge Opera Journal 31(1), 63–84. Pooley, Thomas M. 2018. “CONTINENTAL MUSICOLOGY: DECOLONISING THE MYTH OF A SINGULAR ‘AFRICAN MUSIC’”, African Music: Journal of the International Library of African Music 10(4), 177–193. Ramanna, Nishlyn. 2016. “Introduction: Discursive Flows in South African Jazz Studies—Texts, Contexts, and Subtexts”, The World of Music 5(2), 7-29. Roos, Hilde. 2018. The La Traviata Affair: Opera in the Age of Apartheid. Oakland, California: University of California Press (Music of the African Diaspora), 1–16, 182–186. Steingo, Gavin. 2016. Kwaito's Promise: Music and the Aesthetics of Freedom in South Africa. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Venter, C. et al. 2018. “Decolonising Musicology: A Response and Three Positions”. SAMUS: South African Music Studies 36/37, 129–154. Volans, Kevin. 1986. “Of White Africans and White Elephants.” Kevin Volans. http://kevinvolans.com/essays/of-white-africans-and-white-elephants/. Volans, Kevin. n. d. “White Man Sleeps: Composer’s Statement.” Kevin Volans. http://kevinvolans.com/essays/white-man-sleeps-composers-statement/.
Audiovisual material Access details to the audiovisual material for every class will be available in MS Teams.
Useful links Journals SAMUS: South African Journal of Musicology Journal of the Musical Arts in Africa African Music: Journal of the International Library of African Music
Institutions SASRIM: South African Society for Research in Music DOMUS: Documentation Centre for Music |
|
||
|
Last update: Mgr. Vít Zdrálek, Ph.D. (11.12.2023)
The course will be taught in English in a hybrid form open to students of the Charles University and other universities via the virtual mobility scheme. The course in MS Teams here. The course work is based on class discussions of prescribed reading, listening and watching. The students are asked to submit regular short written reaction papers and a longer final paper by the end of the semester, and to present (live or pre-recorded) the paper’s material and main arguments during final presentation in the exam period. |
|
||
|
Last update: Mgr. Vít Zdrálek, Ph.D. (11.12.2023)
Active participation - 20 %
Short reaction papers - 30 % (6 x 5%)
Final written assignment - 40 %
Presentation of the final paper - 10 %
You need to get 50 % at least and you must not skip any of these four parts to pass the class. |
|
||
|
Last update: Mgr. Vít Zdrálek, Ph.D. (19.02.2024)
Subject to minor changes/adjustments during the semester. For detailed syllabus for every class check MS Teams.
21 Feb - So what does it mean to decolonize African music? Ndaliko 2021
28 Feb - Decolonizing knowledge from "the global south" Mbembe 2015 / Camaroff and Comaroff 2009 / Mignolo 2009 Audio/video: Desai 2018 / Kaganof 2016
6 March - Decolonizing music studies. Is it possible? Venter et al. 2018 Audio/video: Kaganof 2014
13 March - "African music", "African rhythm" and tonality in Africa Agawu 1995, 2016, 2008 / Pooley 2018 Audio/video: Agawu's lectures
20 March - Sheet music - white music? On South African choral music Lucia 2011, 2018, 2020 Audio/video: African Composers Edition
27 March - Composing African music (for string quartet) Koapeng 2014 / Volans n. d., 1986 / Biko 2002 (1978) Audio/video: The Bow Project / Volans 1981, 1982, 1986
3 April - Opera in Cape Town, white but not quite Roos 2018 / Pistorius 2017, 2019 Audio/video: Kaganof 2013
10 April - Jazz against segregation and apartheid Ballantine 2012 (1993) / Allen 2002 / Dalamba 2018 Audio/video: Ballantine 2012 / Rogosin 1959
17 April - Whose jazz? Jazz historiography from South Africa Muller 2007, 2011 / Dalamba 2019 / Ramanna 2016 Audio/video: Yon 2010
24 April - Aestehtics of freedom in South African electronic music Steingo 2016 Audio/video: Kaganof 2003
1 May - No class, public holidays in the Czech Republic
8 May - No class, public holidays in the Czech Republic
15 May - Final discussion
Presentation of the final paper's material and main arguments is going to take place during the exam period. The date will be announced upon mutual agreement. |
|
||
|
Last update: Mgr. Vít Zdrálek, Ph.D. (08.12.2023)
None. Anyone can enroll. |