Orientalism and Music (331-0-1)
Instructors
Inna I Naroditskaya
847/467-2034
in-narod@northwestern.edu
Specialist in Azerbaijanian and Eastern music cultures, Russian music, gender studies, and diasporas. Author, articles and reviews in Ethnomusicology and Asian Music as well as essays and articles in Azerbaijanian and Russian publications; producer of numerous radio programs. Author, Song from the Land of Fire: Azerbaijanian Mugam in the Soviet and Post-Soviet Periods (Routledge, 2003). Editor, Music and the Sirens (Indiana University Press, 2006); co-editor, Manifold Identities: Studies on Music and Minorities (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2004). Recipient of Center for the Education of Women prize, Rackham research grant, Harvard University Davis Senior Fellowship, the Rockefeller Bellagio Scholarly Residency, and funding from the International Institute and School of Music at the University of Michigan.
Meeting Info
RCMA Lower Level 113: Tues 2:00PM - 4:50PM
Overview of class
Orientalism in music incorporates a significant body of Western musical literature that portrays the East in the context of current realities of global communications. The critique of "Orientalism" frames our investigation, deconstructing the categories of West and East proposed in the title of the course, learning, analyzing, accepting and challenging the established concepts of Orientalism.
By combining Ethno and Musicological approaches, we can view European music as a continuing exchange between Eastern and Western cultures (Ancient Greece, the cradle of Western civilization, is not necessarily Western; troubadour songs owe their poetic metaphors to Middle Eastern bards). The geographical boundary between West and East and the concept of Orient and Occident are political and social constructions. Defining both the Occident and the Orient, Western artists, products of their cultural and political environment, created the East as a romanticized abstraction, which mirrored not Oriental but European fantasies and frustrations. Exploring the musical depiction of the East by Westerners, we will attempt to include related Eastern traditional expression as well as trying to imagine how the East might view the West.
The musical collection encompasses different historical periods, musical types, genres, composers, and pieces, especially focusing on romantic operas (Madama Butterfly, L'Italiana in Algeri, Aida, and Carmen) as well as twentieth century musical culture (the Beatles, John Zorn, and John Mellencomp).
Class Attributes
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area