Spring 2004

WGS 393 • Feminist Pop Music Criticism

Course Description

This seminar examines popular music performance, production, reception, and criticism in relation to shifting ideas about gender and sexuality in American society. Focusing on different styles of popular musie (e.g., blues, rock, pop, womyn's music), we will explore the various modes of gender and sexual identity American popular music culture has engaged- and avoided- during the twentieth century. In addition to analyzing how ideologies of gender and sexuality (in relation to those of race, ethnicity, class, and age) impinge upon the structures and practices of musical performance and production at different sociohistorical periods, we will consider how such ideologies inflect various modes of musical reception, particularly the development of fan identities and subcultures connected to specific musical styles. In turn, we will investigate how issues of gender and sexuality relate to the filed of popular music criticism, both within and outside the academy.

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