Music and Nature

Course goals

After completing the course, students

• have acquired an understanding of how music relates to ‘nature’ and its recent discourses across the humanities;
• have studied the relationship between music and nature through the works of selected composers and musicians;
• have gained insight into the ways in which musics, both past and present, relate to societal concerns about ecology and the environment;
• have the ability to explain and evaluate important theoretical concepts, methodologies, and issues relating to the study of music and nature;
• have demonstrated an understanding of the basic tenets of research and can report on findings in a professional manner, both orally and in academic writing.

Content

The course Music and Nature addresses key issues in the history of musical thought and scholarship on nature. Focusing on a wide range of musical works and practices, it invites students to explore and challenge established assumptions about music’s relationship to nature and to rethink how the study of music may enhance understandings of how humans construe(d) their relationship with the natural world. Possible topics to be addressed include the musical representation of nature and how this representation is tied up with broader cultural, social, and political ideas; the way music relates to and mediates (upon) ideas about place, environment, and ecology; how discourses about ‘nature’ have shaped the history and hermeneutics of musical thought; how the development and production of musical instruments intersect with questions of natural resources; issues in the recent development of ecomusicology, the environmental humanities, and cultural heritage studies.

In addition to students studying musicology, this course may be of interest to students across the humanities.

Additional information

Priority rules
This course has priority rules and a waiting list. Your enrolment is guaranteed if you
- are a student in the BA Muziekwetenschap and this course is part of your specialisation (verdiepingspakket)
- are an exchange student and meet the course’s entry requirements
In all other situations, you will be placed on a waiting list if you enrol in this course. For any remaining slots in the course, lots are drawn among the students on the waiting list.

Schedule
Let op: Het getoonde timeslot is nog niet definitief en kan nog wijzigen tot de 3e woensdag van September.