I will be teaching Sexing Sound Art in the Fall 2015 semester as a GSAS Teaching Scholar at Columbia. The course will be co-sponsored by the Institute for the Research of Women and Gender and the Department of Music.
Here is a short course description:
This course explores sound-based creative practices as sites where gender, race, and sexuality are always, and sometimes explicitly negotiated. We will study contemporary sound art that variously speaks to inequalities in canon-formation, participates in human rights movements of the late 20th and 21st centuries, and suggests feminist and queer readings of everyday sonic praxis. Readings in feminist theory, critical theory, art history, musicology, and media studies will guide in-class discussion of artworks accessed through online archives and New York-based installations. We will also review artist statements, exhibition catalogues, conference programs, online media, and journalistic articles. The seminar will address the following questions: What role do sound-based creative practices play in re-/de-/forming raced, gendered, and sexual subjects? What is the place of activism in sound-based arts engaged with feminist and queer politics? Can sound be feminist, queer, anti-racist, Afrofuturist? How should theorists of race, gender, and sexuality address sound in and out of the arts? Open to all majors
The current version of the syllabus is available under the Teaching tab, or here.
Big shout-out to Prof. Ellie Hisama, who suggested that I develop the syllabus in the first place and lead the Feminist Pedagogy seminar at IRWGS this Spring. She will be leading Feminist Pedagogy next year as well and I couldn’t recommend it more.
LUCIE VÁGNEROVÁ 