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Unit of study_

MCGY5600: Critical Discourses in Music

2024 unit information

This unit explores some of the most important theories on music and culture that have shaped academic writing on music today. It will introduce students to scholarly debates and critical thinking potentially relevant to their own research. It will address issues such as how (knowledge of) history impacts on our musical practices, why performance has recently become a core concern of musicology, and what ideologies have shaped basic concepts such as the musical work, the canon and music analysis. Other areas covered include historiography, topics and semiotics, narrative theory, gender and sexuality, identity, genre theory and hermeneutics.

Unit details and rules

Managing faculty or University school:

Code MCGY5600
Academic unit
Credit points 6
Prerequisites:
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None
Corequisites:
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None
Prohibitions:
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None
Assumed knowledge:
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None

At the completion of this unit, you should be able to:

  • LO1. show your awareness of important debates in current musical scholarship
  • LO2. relate music research to wider trends and debates in the humanities and social sciences
  • LO3. understand how music can be seen as a response to and as an agent of social and cultural change
  • LO4. summarise an author’s position on a topic, and then contextualise and critique it
  • LO5. pursue your own research with a solid grounding in the norms and discourses of musicological enquiry
  • LO6. engage respectfully but critically with the views of others through discussion with your peers

Unit availability

This section lists the session, attendance modes and locations the unit is available in. There is a unit outline for each of the unit availabilities, which gives you information about the unit including assessment details and a schedule of weekly activities.

The outline is published 2 weeks before the first day of teaching. You can look at previous outlines for a guide to the details of a unit.

Session MoA ?  Location Outline ? 
Semester 2 2024
Normal day Sydney
Outline unavailable
Session MoA ?  Location Outline ? 
Semester 1 2020
Normal day Sydney
Semester 1 2022
Normal day Sydney

Modes of attendance (MoA)

This refers to the Mode of attendance (MoA) for the unit as it appears when you’re selecting your units in Sydney Student. Find more information about modes of attendance on our website.