Jazz Studies
G6200, section 001:
LISTENING FOR GENDER IN JAZZ STUDIES
While scholarship in jazz studies has increasingly engaged theories of race, the field has been relatively slow to incorporate gender as a salient category of analysis.
Yet gender, as intersected with race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and nation, is a category that yields tremendous insights into practices, sounds, meanings, and debates that interest to scholars in academic jazz studies.
In this graduate seminar, we will survey efforts to incorporate gender analysis in jazz studies, with a focus on recent and emerging jazz scholarship that explicitly deploys a range of feminist theories, queer theory, and gender and sexuality studies. Reading assignments will not be confined to jazz studies, but will include gender studies of other music styles, histories, and practices. The final third of the seminar will be conducted as a writing workshop in which participants will present and critique each other’s works-in-progress that incorporate gender analyses in jazz studies projects. Participants will be expected early on in the seminar to identify an aspect of a jazz studies-related project that may benefit from gender analysis.
In addition to standard requirements of attendance, completing assigned readings on time, and participating in discussions, each seminar participant will be required to complete the following assignments:
(1) Weekly catalog of “theoretical moves”: One of the purposes of this course is to sample a variety of theoretical moves that may be of use to you in your work. We are testing theoretical lenses, if you will, and it’s a good idea to keep a record of the prescriptions that seem promising! Therefore, each seminar participant will keep a log of “theoretical moves”—useful assumptions, lenses, modes of analyzing gender and jazz. Each week, each participant will submit a short paper (2-4 pages) in which s/he identifies, describes, and critically engages at least one “theoretical move” from that week’s readings.(2) Presentation: Seminar participants will take turns opening the discussion of at least one of the course readings. Please keep within a time-frame of about ten minutes, as you share your thoughts on one of the course readings. What are the main points? Discuss the theoretical moves. How do you imagine the insights of this reading could be applied, improved, combined with other insights from other readings?
(3) Workshop paper: Each participant will work on a paper that in some way analyzes gender in a jazz studies framework, broadly defined. Two drafts of the paper are required. Each participant will provide margin comments and typed responses to each workshop participant.
This multi-part assignment includes:
* Proposal, due February 23.
* Draft for workshop is due
Wednesday, March 23 for Group 1
Wednesday, March 30 for Group 2
* Workshop participation March 30 and April 6
* Revision, due May 11, 5:00 PM. Hard copy due in my mail box in Philosophy 602, English and Comp Lit Dept.TECHNOLOGY
This course relies heavily on Courseworks: https://courseworks.columbia.edu/
Let me know if you are unable to access the Courseworks site.
Books (available at Labyrinth Books, 536 W. 112th Street)
Carole R. McCann and Seung-Kyung Kim, Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives (Routledge 2002)
Susan McClary, Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality (U. of Minnesota, 1991)
Chris Weedon, Feminism, Theory, and the Politics of Difference (Blackwell, 1999)
Dissertations (free downloads on-line)
Selection of dissertations filed between 1999-2004 that address issues of gender and jazz. Available through Courseworks on-line syllabus to all registered course participants as downloadable PDF files. Non-registered students will need to access through Proquest; if you have Columbia Libraries access, you can look up and download full-text dissertations as PDF files.
Electronic Reserves
Electronic Reserve readings can be accessed via the Courseworks on-line syllabus to all registered course participants. They are also on file with the Reserve Desk at the Music Library in Dodge Hall.
Jan. 19 Introduction
to “Listening to Gender in Jazz Studies
What is "listening to gender" in the context of this course?
Who is in this seminar and what is everybody working on? Sign-ups for
presentations for next few weeks
Recommended Reading:
Electronic
Reserve:
Sherrie Tucker, “Big Ears: Listening for Gender in Jazz Studies,”
Current Musicology 71-73 (Spring 2001/2002) 375-408.
Jan. 26 Gender, Race, and Jazz
Guest: Nichole T. Rustin, Research Assistant Professor, Afro-American Studies & Research Program, Institute of Communications Research, Gender and Women's Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Required Readings:
Dissertation:
Nichole T. Rustin, Mingus Fingers: Charles Mingus, Black Masculinity, and Postwar Jazz Culture, Ph.D. dissertation, New York University (1999).
Electronic Reserve Articles:
Monique Guillory, “Black Bodies Swinging: Race, Gender, and Jazz,” Soul: Black Power, Politics, and Pleasure (NY: NYU Press, 1998).
Martin Anthony Summers,
"Introduction," Manliness and its discontents : the
Black middle class and the transformation of masculinity, 1900-1930 (Chapel
Hill : University of North Carolina Press, 2004). Xerox available
on reserve at Music Library, Dodge Hall.
Joan Scott, "Experience." Xerox available on reserve at Music
Library, Dodge Hall.
Recommended
Electronic Reserve:
Herman Gray, "Black Masculinity and Visual Culture" Callaloo, Vol. 18, No. 2. (Spring, 1995), 401-405.
Kobena Mercer, “Black Masculinity and the Sexual Politics of Race,” from Welcome to the Jungle (New York and London: Routledge, 1994), 131-170.
Bryce Traister,
"Academic Viagra: the Rise of American Masculinity Studies,"
American Quarterly vol. 52, no. 2 (June 2000), 274-304.
Feb. 2 Feminist Theory I: (Women) Jazz Musicians: Sameness v.
Difference
We will spend the
next three weeks surveying feminist theories with a focus on a range
of approaches to what Chris Weedon calls "the politics of difference."
We will explore these theories for their usefulness for jazz studies.
Required Readings:
Book Chapters:
Chris Weedon, Feminism, Theory, and the Politics of Difference (Blackwell, 1999), Chapter 1, "The Question of Difference," and Chapter 2, "Challenging Patriarchy, Decentering Heterosexuality: Radical and Revolutionary Feminisms."
Carole R. McCann and Seung-Kyung Kim, Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives (Routledge 2002), 1-82.
Electronic Reserve:
Susan Cavin, "Missing
Women on the Voodoo Trail to Jazz," Journal of Jazz Studies
vol. 3, no. 1, Fall 1975, 4-27.
hattie gossett with carolyn johnson, “jazzwomen: they’re mostly
singers and piano players, only a horn player or two, hardly any drummers,”
Heresies no. 10 (1980), 65-60
Bernice Johnson Reagon, “Coalition Politics: Turning the Century,” Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology (NY: Kitchen Table Press, 1983)
Janet Lawson, “Blowing on the Changes: Reflections of a Jazz Woman,” Heresies, no.10 (1980), 70-73.
Ruth Solie, “Defining Feminism: Conundrums, Contexts, Communities,” Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture vol. 1, 1997, 1-11.
Valerie Wilmer, “You Sound Good for a Woman,” As Serious as Your Life: The Story of the New Jazz (London: Pluto, 1977), 204-209 (skip earlier pages).
Feb. 9 Feminist Theory and Difference II: Are Jazzwomen Women? (And Other Queer Questions)
Required Reading:
Book Chapters:
Weedon:: Chapter 3, "Lesbian Difference, Feminism, and Queer Theory"
McCann and Kim: Bunch, Wittig, Lorde, Gopinath, Calhoun
Dissertation Chapters
Julie Smith, Diva Dogs: Women Sounding Improvisation (Ph.D. dissertation, University of British Columbia, 2001) (Interdisciplinary Studies). READ “Introduction”
Electronic Reserves:
John Gill, “Miles in the Sky,” Queer Noises : Male and Female Homosexuality in Twentieth-century Music, ch.6, Minneapolis, Univ. of Minnesota, 1995
Jacob Hale, “Are Lesbians Women?” Hypatia vol. 11, issue 2, Spring 1996, 94
Sherrie Tucker, “When Subjects Don’t Come Out,” Lloyd Whitesell and Sophie Fuller, eds, Queer episodes in music and modern identity, ch.12, Urbana, Univ. of Illinois, 2002.
Web Resources:
Skim the panel discussion of the National Arts Journalism Organization,
Columbia University: "Destination Out" http://www.najp.org/jazz1.html
Take a look at the web-site of Queer Jitterbugs, an organization in San
Francisco http://www.queerjitterbugs.com/jazz_def.html
Also take a look at Diane Middlebrook's web page about her book on Billy
Tipton. http://www.dianemiddlebrook.com/tipton/bt.html
Feb 16: Feminist Theory III: A Conundrum is a Woman: Psychoanalytic and Poststructuralist Approaches
Required Readings
Books:
Weedon, Chapter 4 and 5
McCann and Kim: Scott, Haraway, Butler, Alarcon
Dissertation Chapters
Julie Smith, Diva Dogs: Women Sounding Improvisation (Ph.D. dissertation, University of British Columbia, 2001) (Interdisciplinary Studies). READ “Queer Laughter”
Electronic Reserves:
Hazel Carby, “Playing the Changes,” Race Men (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), chapter 5.
Suzanne Cusick, “On Musical Performances of Gender and Sex,” Audible Traces: Gender, Identity, Music (Zurich, 1999)
Krin Gabbard, “Revenge of the Nerds : Representing the White Male Collector of Black Music,” Black Magic
Judith Halberstam, “Introduction: Masculinity Without Men,” Female Masculinity (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998)
Feb 23 Women Jazz Musicians and the Women-in-Jazz Category
Guest:: Hazel Leach,
conductor, composer, saxophonist, flautist, co-leader, United Women's Orchestra.
Required Reading:
Web Resources
Explore the United Women's Orchestra website: http://www.unitedwomensorchestra.com/english/UWOeng.html
Dissertation Chapters:
Dana Reason Myers, The Myth of Absence: Representation, Reception, and the Music of Experimental Women Improvisers, Ph.d. diss., University of California, San Diego, 2002. READ CHAPTER THREE, "The Myth of Absence: Critical Reception of Contemporary Women Improvisers," 54-80 (for printing purposes 69-95).
Christina Baade, Victory Through Harmony: Popular Music and the British Broadcasting Corporation in World War II, Ph.d. diss., University of Wisconsin, Madison, 2002. READ CHAPTER SEVEN, "Backlash at the BBC: Dance Bands, Gender, and National Identity, 1943-44," 376-439 (for printing purposes, 386-449).
Electronic Reserve:
Ajay Heble and Gillian
Siddal, “Nice Work if You Can Get It,” from Heble, Landing
on the Wrong Note (Routledge 2000), 141-165. Xerox on reserve
at Music Library, Dodge Hall.
Sherrie Tucker, “Bordering on Community: Improvising Women
Improvising Women-in-Jazz,” from Daniel Fischlin and Ajay Heble,
ed., The Other Side of Nowhere (Wesleyan 2004), 244-267.
Xerox on reserve at Music Library, Dodge Hall.
Recommended Reading:
Mavis Bayton, “Women and the Electric Guitar,” Sheila Whitely, ed., Sexing the Groove: Popular Music and Gender Chapter 3, (London: Routledge, 1997).
Norma Coates, “(R)evolution Now: Rock and the Political Potential of Gender,” Sheila Whitely, ed., Sexing the Groove: Popular Music and Gender Chapter 4, (London: Routledge, 1997).
WORKSHOP PAPER PROPOSAL DUE FEB. 23
Mar. 2: Jazz, Gender, and Musicology
Guest:: Jeffrey Taylor, Associate Professor of Music, Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York.
Required Reading:
Book Chapter
Susan McClary, Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality (U. of Minnesota, 1991) CHAPTERS TBA
Electronic Reserve
David Ake, “Re-Gendering Jazz: Ornette Coleman and the New York Scene in the late 1950s,” Jazz Cultures
Kyra Gaunt, “Translating Double-Dutch to Hip Hop: The Musical Vernacular of Black Girls’ Play,” Language, Rhythm, and Sound : Black Popular Cultures into the Twenty-first Century, ch.10, (Pittsburgh, Univ. of Pittsburgh, 1997)
Ellie Hisama, “Voice, Race, and Sexuality in the Music of Joan Armatrading,” Audible Traces: Gender, Identity, Music (Zurich, 1999)
Jeffrey Taylor, “With Lovie and Lil: Rediscovering Two Chicago Pianists of the 1920s,” forthcoming in Nichole Rustin and Sherrie Tucker, ed., Big Ears: Listening for Gender in Jazz Studies.
Mar. 9: NO CLASS – WORK ON YOUR DRAFTS
Mar. 16: NO CLASS – SPRING BREAK
Mar. 23 Intersections of Jazz, Gender, Race, Class, and Place
Required Reading
Book Chapters:
Weedon: Chapters
6 and 7
Dissertation:
Kyle Julien, Sounding the City: Jazz, African American Nightlife,
and the Articulation of Race in 1940s Los Angeles, Ph.D. diss., University
of California, Irvine (2000).
Electronic Reserves:
Alecia P. Long, “Where the Least Harm Can Result,” The
Great Southern Babylon (Louisiana State University Press, 2004),
102-147; 242-247
DUE: Group 1: DRAFTS FOR NEXT WEEK’S WORKSHOP Bring a copy to class,
and also post it as a Word file in the Courseworks "drop-box,"
which you will find in "Class files."
Mar. 30 WRITING WORKSHOP: Group #1
Come with typed comments and margin notes for each paper to be discussed
today.
Group 2: DRAFTS DUE FOR NEXT WEEK’S WORKSHOP Bring a copy to class, and also post it as a Word file in the Courseworks "drop-box," which you will find in "Class files."
Apr. 6
WRITING WORKSHOP: Group #2
Come with typed comments and margin notes for each paper to be discussed
today.
Apr. 13 Gender, Race, and Minstrelsy, Orientalism, Appropriation, and Cross-Cultural Borrowing
Required Readings
Dissertations
Jayna Jennifer Brown, Babylon Girls: African American Women Performers and the Making of the Modern, Ph.d. dissertation, Yale (2001). READ Chapters 1 & 2.
Electronic
Reserves:
Susan Cook, "Passionless Dancing and Passionate Reform: Respectability,
Modernism, and the Social Dancing of Irene and Vernon Castle," from
William Washabaugh, ed. The Passion of Music and Dance: Body,
Gender and Sexuality (NY: Oxford, 1998), 133-150.
Ruth Frankenberg, “Local Whiteness, Localizing Whiteness,” Displacing Whiteness : Essays in Social and Cultural Criticism (Durham, Duke Univ., 1997)
Hilary Harris, “Failing White Woman: Interrogating the Performance of Respectability,” Theatre Journal v.52 no.2 (May 2000), p.183-209.
Ingrid Monson, “The Problem with White Hipness: Race, Gender, and Cultural Conceptions in Jazz Historical Discourse,” Journal of the American Musicological Society, v.48 no.3 (Fall 1995), 396-422.
Gayle Wald, “Mezz Mezzrow and the Voluntary Negro Blues,” Race and the Subject of Masculinities, (Durham, Duke Univ., 1997).
April 14: SPECIAL EVENT: Come to Brooklyn College for my talk, “Gendering the Jazz Wars,” details TBA.
Apr. 20: Black Womanhood and Jazz
Required Reading:
Book Chapters:
McCann and Kim: “Introduction to Section II,” 148-163; Combahee River Collective, 164-171; Rushin, 172-173; Yamada, 174-178; Hill Collins, 318-333
Dissertation Chapters:
Jayna Jennifer Brown, Babylon Girls: African American Women Performers and the Making of the Modern, Ph.d. dissertation, Yale (2001). READ Chapters 3 & 4.
Electronic Reserve:
Hazel Carby, Chapter 1, “Woman’s Era,” and Chapter 2, “Slave and Mistress, Reconstructing Womanhood: the Emergence of the Afro-American Woman Novelist (New York: Oxford Univ., 1987)
Angela Y. Davis, “When a Woman Loves a Man : Social Implications of Billie Holiday's Love Songs," Blues Legacies and Black Feminism (New York, Pantheon, 1998)
Farah Jasmine Griffin, “When Malindy Sings: a Meditation on Black Women's Vocality,” Uptown Conversations : the New Jazz Studies (New York: Columbia Univ., 2004).
Tammy Kernodle, TBA
April 21: SPECIAL EVENT: Attend Mary Lou Williams event featuring Tammy Kernodle, author of Soul on Soul. Details TBA.
Apr. 27 Imperialism, Colonial Discourse, Gender, and Jazz
Required Reading:
Book Chapters:
Weedon, Chapter
8
McCann and Kim: Narayan, Jordan, Rich, Mohanty
Dissertation Chapters:
Fiona Irene Brigstocke Ngo, The Blue Set: Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Imperialsim in Jazz Age New York, Ph.D. diss., University of California, Irvine (2003) (History).
Recommended:
Jayna Jennifer Brown, Babylon Girls: African American Women Performers and the Making of the Modern, Ph.d. dissertation, Yale (2001). READ Chapters 5.
Final Papers Due May 11, 5:00 PM, hard copy in my mail box in Philosophy 602, English and Comp Lit Dept.
