Thematic areas: Terminology (culture, high / low culture, popular culture, popular music, modernism, postmodernism) Theoretical reflection of popular culture (Frankfurt School, Birmingham School, Cultural theory, the state of domestic and global research in the field of popular culture) T. W. Adorno (Frankfurt School critique of capitalism, mass culture, popular music, fetish-character in music, commodification, standardization, pseudo-individualization) Political contexts of popular music (ideologization of art, political vs. apolitical art, socio-political engagement as a prerequisite for aesthetic quality, censorship, propaganda, case studies: folk, punk, art rock, metal, Czech popular culture in the interwar period, the Czech popular culture after 1948) Aesthetic aspects of popular music (authenticity, artistic autonomy, music functions, repetition, intertextuality - recycling, quotations, cover versions) Sociological aspects of popular music (cultural / subcultural capital, social field, habitus, neotribalism, subculture, scene, alternative culture, audience, identity, structural homology, case studies: Teddy Boys, Rockers, Mods, Skinheads, etc.) Economic and jural aspects of popular music (theory of cultural / music industry, Tin Pan Alley, Brill Building, Majors vs. Indies, commercialization of art, ?illegal? music downloads)
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The course deals with popular culture through its dominant component, which is popular music. The students will be familiarized with the subject on the basis of selected chapters and case studies representing the traditional sociological and aesthetic concepts. The lectures will cover general theoretical issues as well as discussion of specific cultural or popular music phenomena. Lectures will be largely designed as a systematic polemic with prominent Frankfurt School thinkers, especially with T. W. Adorno. In this sense, the course will be thematically unified and thus mediate a compact, plastic and synthetic picture of the complex universe of popular music culture.
The students will gain basic knowledge of the key problems related to categories of popular culture, popular music culture and modern popular music. They will be thoroughly acquainted with the views of T. W. Adorno on popular culture and popular music. Together with understanding and fixation of different concepts, scholarly methods, approaches or evaluation systems, the students will also extend their synthetic reflection competencies.
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MATZNER, Antonín ? POLEDŇÁK, Ivan ? WASSERBERGER, Igor, et al. Encyklopedie jazzu a moderní populární hudby ? věcná část. Praha: Supraphon, 1983..
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MIDLLETON, Richard. Studying popular music. Philadelphia: Open University Press, 2002..
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NEGUS, Keith. Popular music in theory: an introduction. Middletown, Conn. : Wesleyan University Press, 1997..
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SHUKER, Roy. Popular music: the key concepts. London: Routledge, 2005..
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SHUKER, Roy. Understanding popular music culture. London: Routledge 2008..
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STOREY, John. Cultural studies and the study of popular culture: theories and methods. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1996..
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STRINATI, Dominic. An introduction to theories of popular culture. London: Routledge, 2004..
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WALL, Tim. Studying popular music culture. London: Arnold, 2003..
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