Description

This advanced seminar introduces students to the topic of disability and Deaf culture through the lens of musical performance. The study of disability and Deaf culture within the field of music has been historically dominated by the discursive shadow of impairment—viewed as limiting musical expression, instead of valued as an embodied perspective that shapes it. Yet, ethnomusicological approaches to this area of study have emphasized culturally relativistic constructions of music, and musicians who identify as disabled or culturally Deaf (often jointly categorized under the umbrella label of “disability”) have and continue to push the boundaries of music through their unconventional expressions and experiences of musical sound. Through an examination of the intersections of music, disability, and Deaf culture, this seminar explores the social, cultural, and political mechanisms that have ideologically “othered” the musical output of individuals who identify as disabled or culturally Deaf. Within the context of investigations of ethnographic accounts that encompass a wide range of musical styles, students will problematize mainstream constructions of disability that stigmatize or fetishize bodies and minds of individuals classified under this label and investigate techniques artists employ to subvert these constructions through performance. Students will become familiar with medical and cultural distinctions of deafness and different models of disability, examine musical diversity through embodiments of sound, analyze modes of cultural colonization, and observe ways disability and deafness is performed through music.

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Objectives

• Investigate ways the "popular" informs disability and Deaf culture and vice versa

  • social, cultural, and political mechanisms that shape meaning

  • models of disability and the complexities of deaf culture in relation to disability studies

  • Representations of disability and D/deaf identity

  • Disability and D/deaf identity as performance

• Explore interdisciplinary perspectives through literature from different fields of study

• Examine intersections within the larger field of identity studies

• Consider changing language in disability and Deaf cultural studies

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Assignments

• Readings

  • Read each week’s primary readings and one supplementary reading from the list provided in the syllabus

• Media Links (Share and Choose)

  • Share a media link (any kind of media —video, song, news piece, artwork, poem, etc.) pertaining to the upcoming seminar topic

  • View a media link posted by another person in the seminar and discuss how it relates to the broader theoretical framework of the readings

• Seminar Tasks/Reading Responses

• Formal Presentation (for anthropology majors)

• Final Paper

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