Perspectives on Music Historiography

Course goals

• have developed a ‘thickened’ knowledge of historiographic issues in the field of musicology that are relevant for understanding recent changes and shifts in musicology in relation to other fields of humanities;
• are able to read difficult and densely written texts that are important for understanding historiographical issues in musicology, and to assess them critically;
• are able to formulate research questions, locate and interpret sources, and assess the significance of their own research in a historiographical context;
• will have gained the skills to present their critical research perspective confidently in both oral and written form.

Content

Using examples from a variety of historical periods, geographical regions, and musicological subject areas, we review some of the most common historiographic models in the field of musicology in the past and now, including their advantages, limitations, and historical etiologies, and explore possible alternatives. Where once the discipline of musicology – as all others – knew distinct limits, today the boundaries appear fluid, or even vanishing. Musicology has expanded from researching the great nations, their great composers, their patrons, culturally acknowledged masterworks, and the manuscripts and prints associated with them to incorporate, for example, issues of race, class, and gender, hybridization, popular forms of music, and the impact of media on music, all in an interdisciplinary or even transdisciplinary context. 

Additional information

This course is for students in the RMA Musicology; students from the RMA programmes Art History, AMRS, Philosophy, Comparative Literary Studies, Nederlandse literatuur en cultuur, Gender and MAPS must contact the course coordinator for permission before enrolling. Only this way participation can be granted. The ability to read musical notation is required. The entrance requirements for Exchange Students will be checked by International Office and the Programme coordinator. You do not have to contact the Programme coordinator by yourself. 

Career orientation:
Training in written and oral presentation of research. Critical assessment of (other scholars') research results and trends.