Breaking the Binary: Gender and Sexuality in Popular Music

Learning Outcomes

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• annotation and referencing of writing in a consistent and recognised format
• engage critically with cultural materials
• demonstrate your understanding of a topic through writing
• use appropriate bibliographical and research tools – recorded, printed and online

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• use analytical models from a variety of disciplines (cultural studies; gender studies; film studies; performance studies; musicology; social sciences) to read popular music videos and songs
• interrogate musical texts through methodologies derived from gender theory and popular music studies
• read, annotate, and summarise critical literature from a range of disciplines, but particularly in terms of gender theory, social sciences and philosophy

Subject Specific Practical Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• evaluate technical and stylistic elements of popular music performances
• locate popular music performances in a historical and social context

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• the recent history of representations of gender and sexuality in western popular musics
• relevant theoretical approaches to the study of gender, sexuality and popular music performance
• style and genre in the popular music repertoire
• theories of difference (gender; sexuality; race; intertextuality) and their application to the analysis of performance and popular music

Topics to be addressed will include gender as performance, expressions of gender, and concepts such as androgyny, camp, drag, queer, hypersexuality and Othering. We will discuss these ideas in the context of a range of different artists and genres, and we will think about the ways in which artists can now use their platforms as a means of social justice and protest.

Teaching and learning methods

Learning activities include:

• short critical thinking activities based on analytical frameworks and tools in core resource texts.
• independent listening, watching and reading of materials: students will engage with a wide range of materials (recorded sound, film, video, popular journalism, academic writing) which will form the basis of our discussion.
• independent preparation of essay(s): students will be encouraged to reflect on their own opinions, preferences and value judgments at appropriate stages during the course.

Resources & Reading list

General Resources

Audible Traces: Gender, Identity, and Music. Elaine Barkin and Lydia Hamessley. Carciofoli, 1999.

Song Means: Analysing and Interpreting Recorded Popular Song. Moore, Alan F. Song Means: Analysing and Interpreting Recorded Popular Song. Farnham: Ashgate, 2012.

Disruptive Divas: feminism, identity & popular music. Lori Burns and Mélisse LaFrance. New York: Routledge, 2002.

Musicology and Difference: Gender and Sexuality in Music Scholarship. Ruth A. Solie. University of California Press, 1995.

Performance Analysis: An Introductory Coursebook. Counsell, Colin, and Wolf, Laurie (Eds). Performance Analysis: An Introductory Coursebook. New York: Routledge, 2001.

Analysing Popular Music: Image, Sound and Text. Machin, David. Analysing Popular Music: Image, Sound and Text. London: Sage, 2010.

Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality. Susan McClary. University of Minnesota Press, 2002.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External