Undergraduate Course: Music, Style, Identity and Image in the Modern Age (MUSI10091)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh College of Art |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course examines the relationship between the production and consumption of popular music in Britain and America and its promotion in material and visual forms, particularly in relation to fashion cultures, art and graphic languages from c.1860 to the present. It will introduce students to key theoretical approaches used in the study of performance and identity (subcultural, design historical, anthropological, iconographical) and trace a history of the shifting contexts in which popular music imagery has been created and disseminated. |
| Course description |
Led by ECA Principal, Prof. Christopher Breward with specialist teaching contributions from ECA staff from Music and Design, this one-semester course is taught through ten 2-hour seminars and includes topics such as:
Music Hall and the democratisation of style.
Burlesque, musical comedy and the promotion of glamour.
Minstrels, zoot-suiters and the politics of resistance.
Teenagers and the erotics of rock and roll.
Myths of Swinging London.
Art school: Practice and performance in pop.
The commodification of kitsch: Glam rock and fantasy.
Situationism, bricolage and punk.
Disco, house and queer aesthetics.
Brutal Futurism from Berlin to Manchester.
Rave cultures and DIY.
Beyond vinyl: Style cultures in a digital age.
You will learn about these topics in advance of the weekly seminars by completing a range of tasks, including watching video lectures, and carrying out additional reading and study assignments as advised for each topic. These preparation tasks guide your learning, and will help you to develop the skills to select and critically analyse sources in a variety of visual, musical and scholarly media. During the seminars, you will develop your understanding through group discussion, directed by the academic lead.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate a detailed understanding of the relationship between the popular music industry and visual and material creative practices.
- Relate the production and consumption of music-related fashion and graphic forms to their aesthetic, social, cultural, political and economic contexts, applying relevant theoretical concepts to the analysis of these relationships.
- Engage in the evaluation of primary evidence related to the history of popular music in archives, collections and gallery/museum contexts.
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Reading List
Cohen, S, Folk Devils and Moral Panics, London, 1972
Cole, S, Don We Now Our Gay Apparel, Oxford, 2000
Frith, Simon. 'Music and identity.' In Hall and du Gay (Eds.) Questions of cultural identity, 1996.
Gorman, P, The Look, London, 2001
Greil, M, Lipstick Traces, London, 1989
Hall, S and T. Jefferson, Resistance Through Rituals, London, 1977
Harris, J, The Last Party, London, 2004
Hebdige, D, Subcultures: The Meaning of Style, London, 1979
McRobbie, A, Zoot Suits and Second Hand Dresses, Basingstoke, 1989
Muggleton, D, Inside Subcultures, Oxford, 2000
Osgerby, B, Youth in Britain since 1945, Oxford, 1998
Sabin, R, Punk Rock, So What? London, 1999
Thornton, S, Club Cultures, Cambridge, 1995
Tomlinson, A, Consumption, Identity and Style, London, 1990
Walker, J, Crossovers: Art into Pop, London, 1987
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
To be able to search for, evaluate and use information that takes a variety of forms, in order to develop knowledge and understanding
To be able to critically review and consolidate knowledge about complex social and cultural matters
To exercise autonomy and initiative in knowledge acquisition and synthesis |
| Keywords | Fashion,popular culture,history,sociology,design,art |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Nikki Moran
Tel: (0131 6)50 2423
Email: n.moran@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Rhona MacMichael
Tel: (0131 6)50 2422
Email: rhona.macmichael@ed.ac.uk |
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