2016/17 Undergraduate Module Catalogue

MUSS2520 Aesthetics and Criticism

20 creditsClass Size: 40

Module manager: Matthew Pritchard
Email: M.Pritchard1@leeds.ac.uk

Taught: Semesters 1 & 2 (Sep to Jun) View Timetable

Year running 2016/17

Pre-requisite qualifications

Normally a pass of at least 60 in MUSS1030 Music History and Culture, or a similar grade in extended essay assignments in another discipline.

Pre-requisites

MUSS1030

Music in History and Culture

This module is approved as a discovery module

Module summary

The module seeks to develop in students an understanding of a range of historical positions within the history of aesthetics, both understood as a part of the history of thought more broadly and in light of the ways in which music specifically figures in these histories. The module, too, aims to help students recognise the ways in which aesthetic modes of thought recur within genuinely contemporary media, through examinations of press sources, films and literature in which music takes a central role, and recent musicology. Finally, the module gives students the opportunity to demonstrate their understandings in practical sense, through the writing of regular concert reviews in light of particular aesthetic theories. Staff- and student-led sessions will engage with key texts in the history of aesthetics from Greek writings through to the postmodern. Sessions will be divided into two parts. The first (staff-led) part will function as an introduction to a particular mode of aesthetic thought. Importantly, no particular attempt is made to focus on aesthetic approaches which make specific or overt reference to music qua music. Instead, students are introduced to the broader context of aesthetics within the history of thought. Assessment includes an examination, as well as concert reviews.

Objectives

Subject specific

The module seeks to develop in students an understand of a range of historical positions within the history of aesthetics, both understood as a part of the history of thought more broadly and in light of the ways in which music specifically figures in these histories. The module, too, aims to help students recognise the ways in which aesthetic modes of thought recur within genuinely contemporary media, through examinations of press sources, films and literature in which music takes a central role, and recent musicology. Finally, the module gives students the opportunity to demonstrate their understandings in practical sense, through the writing of regular concert reviews in light of particular aesthetic theories.

Generic
The course aims to develop in students an ability to handle large volumes of complex information, as well as to be able to summarise such complex information in relatively pithy form. They are expected to be able to identify where texts rely for their presumptions upon the thought of others and to show, in such a light, where presumptions might be faulty, or might be re - modulated to produce different consequences. They are expected to be able to demonstrate a similar, if developing, level of self‐awareness.

Learning outcomes
Subject specific
On successful completion of the module, a student should be able to:
- understand ways in which aesthetics within the history of thought intersect with and impact upon music, both in an historical and a contemporary sense;
- demonstrate that they can identify those aesthetic modes of thought within particularly musical discourses;
- show a developing ability to re-apply aesthetic approaches to music in a practical, ‘everyday’ sense, through reviews of concerts across a broad range of musics.

Generic
On successful completion of the module, a student should be able to:
- carry out a close reading of a complex text, reading for both detail and general sense;
- show an ability to identify where a writer is relying (knowingly or unknowingly) upon extant thought, and to assess what the consequences for a piece of writing might be;
- demonstrate skills in writing within a particular (journalistic) style while retaining intellectual depth;
- demonstrate the ability to provide information within particularly compact pieces of writing.

Syllabus

The syllabus as given is indicative rather than prescriptive; the exact syllabus is expected to change in response to the particular interests of staff members leading sessions (and in response to any significant events in criticism of actual artistic practice).

Staff- and student-led sessions will engage with key texts in the history of aesthetics from Greek writings through to the postmodern. Sessions will be divided into two parts. The first (staff-led) part will function as an introduction to a particular mode of aesthetic thought. Importantly (and in contrast to the previous version of this module, which this is intended to replace), no particular attempt is made to focus on aesthetic approaches which make specific or overt reference to music qua music. Instead, students are introduced to the broader context of aesthetics within the history of thought.

The first term will deal principally with 'classical' aesthetics, taking an historical and broadly developmental approach. An indicative list of sessions might read as follows:

1. Intro

2. Greek aesthetics (Plato & Aristotle)
3. Medieval aesthetics (St. Augustine, St. Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas)

4. Rationalism (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz)
5. Empiricism (Locke, Berkeley, Hume)
6. Kant, from Judgement of Taste

7. Hegel, from The Philosophy of Fine Art
8. Schopenhauer, from The World as Will and Representation
9. Hanslick, from The Beautiful in Music
10. Nietzsche, from The Birth of Tragedy

The second term will engage with twentieth-century thinking on aesthetics, taking in (broadly) both modern and postmodern approaches. Rather than an overtly historicist trajectory, this term will operate according to broad themes. Thus, an indicative list of session might read:

Phenomenology/Hermeneutics
1. Heidegger and Origins
2. Merleau-Ponty and Perception
3. Gadamer and Method

Marxism/Critical Theory
4. Benjamin and Reproduction
5. Adorno and New Music
6. Jameson and Cultural Logic

Poststructuralism/Postmodernism
7. Bataille and Subversion
8. Foucault and Authorship
9. Lyotard and the Sublime

10. Closing discussion

It is in the second half of each session where these approaches are immediately brought to bear on music. Students will move from a lecture-style environment toward a student-led workshop situation. A variety of aesthetic 'texts' will be presented to students in which aesthetics can be seen in ‘real world’ contexts. These might range from contemporary and historical music criticism and journalism, the ways in which music and musicians have been presented in film and literature, as well as musicology 'proper'.

Students will be expected to identify, on a developing basis, the various aesthetics positions regarding music which present themselves on a largely 'everyday' basis. No particular genre, style or category of music will be privileged in this respect: popular, classical, electronic, 'new', film, and jazz musics will all appear.

These skills are then applied on an ongoing basis outside the classroom. Students are expected to attend at least one concert per week and to submit a 250-word review of that concert to the VLE. Reviews should either be undertaken explicitly from the viewpoint of the mode of aesthetic thought studied in class in that week OR explicitly against that viewpoint (according to student choice).

Each student will, too, be obliged to offer formative feedback on one other review submitted by another student (and must comment on a different student’s work each week). Students will also receive (from staff leading the course) general formative feedback on ways in which reviews as a whole, across the cohort, could be improved. For final submission for summative assessment each term, students should select the TWO reviews they think represent their abilities best and expand these, following the feedback received, to 500 words a piece.

Teaching methods

Delivery type	Number	Length hours	Student hours
Seminar	20	2.00	40.00
Private study hours			160.00
Total Contact hours			40.00
Total hours (100hr per 10 credits)			200.00

Private study

- Preparation for class seminars: 40 hours
- Attendance at performances and writing of reviews: 80 hours
- Exam preparation: 40 hours.

Opportunities for Formative Feedback

Progression is monitored in two ways:
- through the workshop sections of the course, which take up the second part of each week's classroom work.
- Students will submit weekly concert reviews according to a prescribed model to the VLE. Formative feedback will come from other class members but the tutor will also monitor this activity.
- Students' progress will be monitored at the end of semester 1 through their performance in the exam.

Methods of assessment

Coursework

Assessment type	Notes	% of formal assessment
Written Work	4 concert reviews (450-550 words each) each worth 12.5% of the final module mark. Each student will, too, be obliged to offer feedback on one other review submitted by another student (and must comment on a different student’s work each week). Thus, they will receive consistent and ongoing peer feedback to supplement formative feedback being received in class. These activities are not in themselves assessed, but are qualificatory (i.e. if they are not undertaken, a student should receive no grade for the course as a whole). At the end of each term, students should submit TWO reviews which they believe represent their strongest work.	50.00
Total percentage (Assessment Coursework)		50.00

Normally resits will be assessed by the same methodology as the first attempt, unless otherwise stated

Exams

Exam type	Exam duration	% of formal assessment
Standard exam (closed essays, MCQs etc)	2 hr 00 mins	50.00
Total percentage (Assessment Exams)		50.00

Normally resits will be assessed by the same methodology as the first attempt, unless otherwise stated

Reading list

The reading list is available from the Library website

Last updated: 21/09/2016

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