Issues in Jazz Studies

http://pastelsbeeman.blogspot.com/2010_04_01_archive.html Beemanmj@Bresnan.net

I’m developing a new module in Issues in Jazz Studies for an MA in Jazz Studies. Students will also do modules: in Music as Culture; Music as Commerce, or Creative Industries and Cultural Policy, or Music Heritage; Research Methods or Production Lab; MA by Dissertation or MA by Project

It is aimed at individuals who want to develop an academic or professional career in jazz as an industry and culture. There isn’t a performance element as we already have a fine MMus Jazz (Performance or Composition) at the university. The new MA Jazz Studies programme will be based in the Birmingham School of Media, and will have a strong media and cultural studies emphasis. It will share modules with our current MA Music Industries.

I emailed a group of jazz and popular music academics and then collated their suggestions about what they would include in such a module. Your productive comments are very welcome.

Distilling the contributions into ten topics

Jazz as a music and as a cultural concept [contesting the boundaries of jazz as musical form, terminology, concept, ideology]

Historicising jazz

Jazz as a world music [The diasporic process, globalisation, european vs american developments]

Hybridity and fusion

Jazz as organised work [professional; collectives]

Jazz as an industry

Cultural position of jazz

Jazz and and identity [including constructs of race, gender and sexuality (especially picking up on David Ake's and Julie Dawn Smith's work)]

Recorded performance and record production

Mediation of jazz [jazz and radio/journalism/photography/TV&Film/t'internet]