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    One of the great paradigmatic essays on taking popular music seriously as an object of study—and using feminism as a means doing so.

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    Feminist Musicology & the Abject Popular

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    One of the great paradigmatic essays on taking popular music seriously as an object of study—and using feminism as a means doing so.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    140 views4 pages

    Feminist Musicology & The Abject Popular

    Uploaded by

    Anonymous CxVXZJphtN
    One of the great paradigmatic essays on taking popular music seriously as an object of study—and using feminism as a means doing so.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    of 4
    ‘Women and Moss A Journal of Gender and Cole Rem ad Masi A ours of Gender Cabra al jr : einbed lth ntsc Alans or Wemshn Ms e) by be Unversity of Nebraska Pes Drawing Eig igen dsp an approche he foe jour ek frie He udestansig of th laos SE tiene od cone wth ec secon bong gen ote cones af wom For hate afcmason {Pour ite he meri ifomason he ask his si blicionlfomaton (noo yh manatns Aas for Wane in asi Fee ee sonoma hos plo eson Une fers at rae Sige Aaten spon coming re on hago Indl who arenes fe rec thisjounal be of embep For information on menbechip tt Humble Se #06 Isletas trout one frm fC at eA atanlee nak aesoot Wonder tor econo ens tnt donee da nn anf Seah lion Autos ws areata wl ah oie ca akan gney mesa examples. Actor ae ropa or ting ad proving Sy Cpr hac racer Nevertire rh liwigyers ie Sn ani {Gonceand eCard ee Deparment of Me The Gone Wahi, Wasinon aaccree tat ree shone soso Fd et Many Deprnet of Mase, Une of i Ghaterl 3903 1 anasit, withow ent Women & Music VOLUME 5, 2008 Catherine Parsons Seth Sylvia Namyonga-Tamasuza Susanne Daalap Maria Rose Suzanne G.Cosic Susan C, Cook Pickko Mosala Susan Fast Deborah Wong, Contaibutors aM nas 149 146 8 [An Operatic Skeleton onthe Western Frontier Zitkal-S, Willa F. Hanson, and The Sux Dace Opera ‘Baakisimba: Constructing Gender ofthe Baganda (of Uganda) dhrough Music and Dance Susanna and the Male Gaze: The Musial Ieonogzaphy ofa Baroque Heroine Helene de Montgeoult and the Art of Singing Well on the Fiano “Bye... Blowing in Our Ears"? Toward a History of “Music Scholarship on Women inthe Twentieth Century RESPECT (Find Out What Ie Means to Me Feminist Musicology and the Abject Populae Reviows lida Amarée: Et leomadsode (Elfiida Andvée: A Life Destiny, by Eva Ostrom Conventional Wisdom: The Content of Musical Form, by Susan MeClary Seige the Dance! BaAka Musical Life and the Exhaography of Performance, by Michelle Kise “R-E-S-P-E-C-T (Find Out What It Means to Me)”: Feminist Musicology and the Abject Popular SUSAN C. COOK aga Women & Music Volume 5 to doing feminist esearch and writing on "pop: ula musics. ‘My selFidentifcation with popular music is relatively new, although T've been working on & ragtime dance stady for more years than T fae ro remember, litally 1 identified with his Century, Twas a “Twenseeh-Century Person,” labeling myself ap we masicologss lke ro do by our chronological focus. (Although as an od boyliend used to chide me, “We're really fall owenteth-century people") Then I became 8 card-carying Americans through my afiia- tion with the Society for American Musi.' Now Fhicmay gw tol ema fd prc 199 Coane uso one tam gc oem ree Sans Cand Cay Pkt {ew toe somal rears fre fist ny ty 8 Ames ech “che popular” has become my pasion, because foc me the most troubling legacy of rwentith century moderns perpetuated by twentieth century scholars regardless of their historical foci has been the reation and maintenance of hirarchical—and largely fettious—dicho. tomes of al kinds, One ofthe most feel he lieved in draws a dainction between “classical” and “popular,” o¢ “serious” and *populag.” or “egkivated” and “vernacular” Like so. many hierarchical categories, the popular” and the “lasial” ace imaginary, nd yer they are powerfully imagined. A pat deal of energy goesinwo keeping these categories circalating and often in simplistic and uncritical ways. We use the abels easily, ye iis rarely tions of late ninerenth- and early twentieth century modernism, carries with ita staggering cultural baggage, ateunk fll of social codes that have been historically atached to wornankind and underprivileged men. Popular musi is fad dish, i°s common, i's uneducated, ts ingra- tating, itis nether timeless nor transcendent, it's tained by the markerplacs, e's aecessible, it's nor of che mind, rather iis the anderval- ‘ued, and in this eae often dancing, body. To use Naomi Schors imagery, poplar music is the onamental, excessive fippery—the ribbons and cutle—of changing female fashion. Or co draw more graphically fom Kristeva and Baler, popular musi, in ts otherness, is "the abject,” something that must he expelled by cule, let behind quite literally on the dng heap.” (One doesn't have to look far to fad this ab ject tats, fom radio stations who forbid any: ‘hing “populac” in their offerings of “NR News and Classical Music” to a similarly inaudible and invisible status a so many of our scholarly conferences. While sessions frequently examine in great detail years or decades in the lives of individual composers places oF draw eat 5: Anite: Foye, "Mau Cure ad Wotan: Mo Sti’ Oe Ss tran Taha Mats (Boonie tnss Unersy Drs 986 4 Komi Schr, Reading Deals Ate amd the Sinn (Nw Yorks Matha 987.) Sth Br, Coder Troe enon and he Sale eof dey Row Yok Rowdgn os0h 95-34 142 Women & Music Volume 5 ful distinctions among the peactces of particular ences poplar musics rectve ls pariclarzed treatments, We sil have sessions entitled “Jazz” with no frther qualifying tems, historical ne ance, or awareness of rexional and historical Adimensions. The not-so-subtle message coming {oom these token sesionsithat popular musical objets all sound alike. They caa be tolerated in small doses bur do not deserve the energy of learning to recognize betwen oe arnong them. [At the risk of being too self-closing, let me share another example that helped spark this re sponse. was asked to contribute toa collection of essayson the given opi “fing with the ver racula.” As Teued the phrase over in my mind "began to ask, Who's iting with whom and to what end? What ae the implicit power relations hete? Why “liking” and noe another erm? Af- ter examining the table of contents forthe rest of the volume if was clear that only “the vernac lac” merited oh personification and sexualiza- tion. There was no chapter ended “seduced by the serial” or “necking with the neoclassical.” ‘What at frst seemed lke an amusing tide came to reveal tel as more than me the eye *Plicing” is nota neutal wordt partakes of preexisting discourse thats both gendered and heterosexist and colies on those dicutsve mean Ings for its power. Within the particular histo. ‘eal context of my research, the decade of the 1920s in France and Germany, the veracale wasindeed the exotic hot babe that my "serious” ‘composers bedded often with great pronounce: meats of Geliry and. demonstrations of vii ity. Asthe American composer Louis Gruenberg, asked in 21925 article on the influence of a2, ‘What composer hasnt flirted with this sede ‘The time was peaking n paraiso the 999 ss mecigs however, he mae est Fro ea ones, The program core fhe aus append ro ive gone oro wy to de poplr me ses ‘svomethiag care on tad thts Wt ad a ifr be preety fr mein Ma ‘al nil elmer ne ty Popular asic US. Chip popaar ae would Feed een wore than he ear ke {ive temps?” Whe some composes vied deepest conc aout the eeprics ope iar” and “seo” and sought ow kind oe ces, most ct the contemporary dane

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