WMST 4260/6260

MUSI 4250/6250
Women and Music
Tuesdays & Thursdays, 2-3:15
Music #410
Dr. Susan Thomas
Office: Music #337
Office Hour: W 3:30-5, or by appt.
Phone (706)542-2763
Email: suthomas@uga.edu

Course Description:
This course explores global music traditions from the perspectives of women. We
will examine the traditions of art, vernacular, and sacred musics and the roles women
have played as creators, performers, sponsors, and consumers in these spheres. We will
also study the representation of women in music and how it reflects the culture of both
the past and the present. Recent and sometimes controversial scholarship on gender and
its role in the fields of musicology and ethnomusicology as well as other disciplines,
including feminist literary criticism and cultural studies will be discussed. The overall
approach will be topical rather than chronological, allowing for comparative study of
different musics.

Required Textbooks:
Available at the Off-Campus Bookstore, 696 Baxter St.
 Jane Bernstein, ed. Women’s Voices Across Musical Worlds (Boston:
Northeastern University Press, 2004)

Additional readings and required listening examples will be posted on ELC.

Course Requirements:
Students will take an active role in the class. You will be expected to read and
listen to all assigned materials and to participate in class discussion. Each week, you will
be required to submit a short précis (2 pages) of one of the reading or listening
assignments. Students enrolled at the 6000 level should discussing two of the readings in
dialogue with each other. See ELC for detailed instructions for how to write a précis.
(Note: You are responsible for reading ALL of the assigned material)

There will be a final paper/presentation project, focusing on a “diva” or woman

performer or composer, past or present, from anywhere in the world. You are encouraged
to do original research in your chosen area. Detailed instructions will be posted on ELC.

In addition, there are four short “reaction” assignments. These assignments may ask you
to reflect on an author’s position, to think about your own relationship with music, or ask
you to describe or react to a particular performance.
Attendance & Participation:
Class participation plays a crucial role in this course. Thus, your active and informed
presence is mandatory. Participation will be judged by your coming to class prepared,
and by your critical engagement with class material. I will not take attendance.
However, pop quizzes will be periodically given at the beginning of class, and your
scores on these quizzes will be calculated as 10% of your grade. Missed quizzes may
not be made up, however, you will be allowed to drop the two lowest quiz scores.

CALCULATION OF GRADE: Précis: 11x3= 33

Short Assignments 4x4= 16
Quizzes 10
Participation 11
Final Project 30

Grades will be assigned according to the following scale:

93-100 A
90-92 A-
87-89 B+
83-86 B
80-82 B-
77-78 C+
73-77 C
70-72 C-
60-69 D
59 and below F

Any student who may require some special arrangements in order to meet course
requirements should contact the instructor as soon as possible to make necessary
arrangements. Students should present appropriate verification from Disability
Services within the first TWO WEEKS of the semester.

Students are expected to follow the University’s policy on academic honesty, “A

Culture of Honesty.” To re-familiarize yourself with the University’s policy, please
refer to: www.uga.edu/~ovpi/honesty/ah.pdf

COURSE SCHEDULE
(This syllabus is subject to change)

WEEK ONE
Aug. 15 First Class

Aug. 17 Introduction to issues of women and music

 Bernstein, “Introduction,” WVAMW 3-12
  Bowers and Tick, “Introduction,” in Women Making Music, The
Western Art Tradition, 1150-1950, 3-13

*** Reaction Assignment #1: Musical Autobiography: Prepare a list
of women composers/performers in your own music collection. In
what areas are women present/absent? Select 1-2 favorite cuts to
bring and share with the class. Full Instructions on ELC.

WEEK TWO
Aug. 22 Music and Power
 Read: John Shepherd, “Difference and Power in Music,” in Solie,
ed., Musicology and Difference (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1994), 46-65.
 Ellen Koskoff, “Gender, Power, and Music,” in Zaimont, ed., The
Musical Woman, An International Perspective, vol. 3 (1986-90),
769-88.

Aug. 24 Mother Superior: Yoko Ono

 Elizabeth Lindau, “Mother Superior: Maternity and Creativity in
the Music of Yoko Ono,” Women and Music 20 (2016).
 Levitz, Tamara. “Yoko Ono and the Unfinished Music of ‘John &
Yoko’: Imagining Gender and Racial Equality in the Late 1960s.”
In Impossible to Hold: Women and Culture in the 1960s, edited by
Avital H. Bloch and Lauri Umansky, 217–39. New York: New
York University Press, 2005.

WEEK THREE
Aug. 29 Public vs. Private I—Performance and Gendered Spaces
 Bernstein, WVAMW, 13-17.
 Reich, “The Power of Class” in WVAMW, 18-35.
 Fauser, “Fighting in Frills,” in WVAMW, 60-86.

Aug. 31 Public vs. Private I—Music as a Feminine Accomplishment

 Reich, “Clara Schumann,” in Bowers and Tick, ed., Women
Making Music, 249-81.
 David Ferris, “Public Performance and Private Understanding:
Clara Wieck’s Concerts in Berlin,” Journal of the American
Musicological Soceity 56/2 (Summer 2003): 351-408

WEEK FOUR
Sept. 5 Girl Groups I: Voicing Girlhood in the 1960s
 Jacqueline Warwick, “The Girl Group Sound” and “The Voice of
the Girl” in Girl Groups, Girl Culture: Popular Music and Identity
in the 1960s. (Routledge, 2007)
Sept. 7
  Jacqueline Warwick, “Embodying Girliness,” Girl Groups, Girl
Culture: Popular Music and Idetity in the1960s.
 Will Stos, “Bouffants, Beehives, and Breaking Gender Norms:
Rethinking ‘Girl Group’ Music of the 1960s,”Journal of Poupular
Music Studies 24/2 (2012)

WEEK FIVE
Sept. 12 Up Front: Women Conductors
 Kay Lawson, “A Woman’s Place is at the Podium,” Music
Educator’s Journal 70/9 (May 1984), 46-49.
 Norman Lebrecht, “A Maestro Need not be a Mister,” La Scena
Musicale (June 29, 2000). Access online at
http://www.scena.org/columns/lebrecht/000629-NL-
womenconductors.html
 Brydie-Leigh Bartleet, “Women Conductors on the Orchestral
Podium: Pedagogical and Professional Implications,
College Music Symposium 48 (2008): 31-51.
Sept. 14
 Chaowen Ting, “The Education of Women Conductors: Could an
All-Girls Club be the Answer?” IAWM Journal 22/2 (2016):7-11.
 Anna Bull, “Gendering the Middle Classes: The Construction of
Conductors’ Authority in Youth Classical Music Groups, The
Sociological Review (Oct. 17, 2016).
 Esa Pekka-Salonen: 10 tips to becoming a conductor
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-25155333

WEEK SIX
Sept. 19 Cloistered Voices I—Hildegard von Bingen
 Fassler, “Music for the Love Feast,” in WVAMW, 92-117.
 Holsinger, “The Flesh of the voice: Embodiment and the
Homoerotics of Devotion in the Music of Hildegard of Bingen
(1098-1179),” Signs 19 (1993), 92-125.
Reaction Assignment #2 On ELC

Sept. 21 Cloistered Voices II—Disembodied Voices

 Monson, “Putting Bolognese Nun Musicians in Their Place,” in
WVAMW 118-142
 Kendrick, “Feminized Devotion, Musical Nuns, and the “New-
Style” Lombard motet of the 1640’s,” in Marshall, ed.,
Rediscovering the Muses, 124-139.

WEEK SEVEN
Sept. 26 Empowered Voices I
 Danielson, “Voices of the People: Umm Kulthum” in WVAMW,
147-165.
Sept. 28 Empowered Voices II—Whose Voice?
 Bernstein, “Thanks for my Weapons in Battle,” in WVAMW 166-
186.
 Thomas, “Did Nobody Pass the Girls the Guitar? Queer
Appropriations in Contemporary Cuban Popular Song” Journal of
Popular Music Studies (Winter, 2006): 124-145.

WEEK EIGHT
Oct. 3 Creating Space, Celebrating Difference: Women’s Music Festivals
 Elizabeth Keenan, “Who Are You Calling Lady?: Femininty,
Sexuality, and Third-Wave Feminism,” Journal of Popular Music
Studies 20/4 (2008): 378-401
 Eileen Hayes, “Diary of a Mad Black Festigoer,” and
“Reconnaissance” in Songs in black and Lavender (U of Illinois
Press, 2010), 9-45.
 Suggested (not required): Ann Cvetokovitch, “Introduction” and
“The Everyday Life of Queer Trauma,” in An Archive of Feelings
(Duke, 2009). These chapters deal with the author’s relationship to
some music she heard at one such festival. They’re fascinating, and
she’s a brilliant thinker/writer.

 Oct. 5 Keenan and Dougher, “Riot Grrrl, Ladyfest, and Rock

Camps for Girls” in Downes, ed. Women Make Noise: Girl Bands
from Motown to the Modern (Supernova Books, 2012), 259-291.
 Watch some of Radical Noises

WEEK 9 Country Music: Class and Gender

Oct. 10
 Nadine Hubbs, “Gender Devians and Class Rebellion in ‘Redneck
Woman,’” in Rednecks, Queers, & Country Music (U of California
Press, 2014), 107-130.
Oct. 12
 Eric Weisbard, “Duets with Modernity: Dolly Parton and Country
Music,” in Top 40 Democracy: The Rival Mainstreams of
American Music. (U of Chicago Press, 2015), 70-111.

WEEK TEN Lamenting Voices I

Oct. 17 Lamenting Voices I—The Blues

 Kernodle, “Having her Say,” in WVAMW 213-231
 Jane Bowers, “Writing the Biography of a Black Woman Blues
Singer,” in Moisala and Diamond, eds., Music and Gender, 140-
165.
Reaction Assignment #3 on ELC
Oct. 19 The Blues (cont.)
 Carby, “It Jus Be’s Dat Way Sometime: The Sexual Politics of
Women’s Blues,” in Robyn Warhol and Diane Price Herndl, eds.,
Feminisms: An Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism, 746-58.
 Peter Antelyes, “Red Hot Mamas: Bessie Smith, Sophie Tucker,
and the Ethnic Maternal Voice in American Popular Song,” in Dunn
and Jones, eds., Embodied Voices: Representing Female Vocality in
Western Culture (Cambridge University Press, 1994), 212-229.

WEEK ELEVEN
Oct. 24 Lamenting Voices II—Lyric Laments
 Harris, “Abandoned Heroines,” in WVAMW 232-356

Oct. 26 Lyric Laments (cont.)

 Ellen Rosand, “Il lamento: The Fusion of Music and Drama,” in
Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice, 361-386
 McClary, “Excess and Frame: The Musical Representation of
Madwomen,” in Feminine Endings, 80-111 (Focus on 80-90)

WEEK TWELVE The Sapphonic Voice: Object, Actor, Experience

Oct. 31
 Elizabeth Wood, “Sapphonics” in Brett, ed, Queering the Pitch,
27-66
 Suanne Cusick, “On a Lesbian Relation with Music: A Serious
Effort Not to Think Straight,” in Queering the Pitch, 67-84
 Suggested: Terry Castle, “In Praise of Brigitte Fassbaender: A
Musical Emanation,” The Apparitional Lesbian: Female
Homosexuality and Modern Culture (Columbia U Press, 1993),
200-238
Reaction Assignment #4. Think about one of your favorite women
singers (any genre, any style), listen to the singer, and the
describe/discuss the voice and its appeal to you. Full Instructions on
ELC

Nov. 2
 Freya Jarman-Ivens, “Karen Carpenter: America’s Most Defiant
Square,” in Queer Voices: Technologies, Vocalities, and the Musical
Flaw (Palgrave, 2011), 59-94
 Eric Lott, “Perfect is Dead: Karen Carpenter, Theodor Adorno, and the
Radio,” Criticism 50/2 (2008).

WEEK THIRTEEN
Nov. 7 Girl Groups II
  Laurie Stras “Voice of the Beehive: Vocal Technique at the Turn of
the 1960s,” in Stras, ed., She’s So Fine: Reflections on Whiteness,
Femiinity, Adolesence, and Music in the 1960s (Ashgate, 2010)
 Robyn J. Stilwell, “Vocal Decorum: Voice, Body, and Knowledge in
the Prodigious Singer Brenda Lee,” in She’s So Fine (Ashgate, 2010).

Nov. 9
 Annie J. Randall, “Dusty’s Hair,” in She’s So Fine (Ashgate, 2010)
 Norma Coates, “Whose Tears Go By? Marianne Faithfull at the Dawn
and Twilight of Rock Culture,” in She’s So Fine.

WEEK FOURTEEN Performance, Gender, and the (Raced) Body

Nov. 14
 Farah Jasmine Griffin, “When Malindy Sings: A Meditation of Black
Women’s Vocality,” Jazz Studies Online
http://jazzstudiesonline.org/files/jso/resources/pdf/GRIFFIN--
When%20Malindy%20Sings_0.pdf
 Gail Hilson Woldu, “Do These Sequins Make My Butt Look Fat?
Wardrobe, Image, and the Challenge of Identity in the Music of Black
American Women” The Musical Quarterly 96/1 (2013):100-136.

Nov. 16 Special Guest: Marta Kelleher

 Shana Goldin-Pershbacher, “TransAmericana: Gender, Genre, and
Journey” New Literary History: A Journal of Theory and
Interpretation 46/4 (2015): 775-803
 Marta Kelleher, TBA

**THANKSGIVING BREAK NOV. 20-24**

WEEK FIFTEEN
Nov. 28 PRESENTATIONS

Nov. 30 PRESENTATIONS

Additional Presentations to take place during Final Exam timeslot, Dec. 7, 3:30-6:30.
ALL STUDENTS ARE REQUIRED TO ATTEND