The Music and Cultural Analysis reading group (formerly MACAU, the music and culture reading group at Amsterdam University), is no longer running. Below is information about what we used to do in a fast receding past.
MACA welcomes participants from all institutes of higher education that take a special interest in the intersection of music and culture. In informal meetings of scholars, postdocs, PhD students, RMA students and advanced MA students we discuss one or two articles that have been proposed by members of the reading group. Sometimes the articles are work in progress from participants who want to get feedback from the group. More often we read recent articles or chapters from books that are of particular relevance to us. Very rarely we tackle an older text, perhaps because it has been forgotten or overlooked. It’s completely open ended. The idea is to inform each other of recent writings and debates, to discuss such matters, and get to the bottom of it. If you have a paper of your own or a suggestion that you would like to bring in this is welcome. For each semester we use a broad topic as focus but we don’t feel constrained to stick to the topic. Topics we have discussed over the past years include music and humor, music and war, music and spheres, music and the postcolonial, the meaning of polyphony, music and religion.
Participation is not limited to musicologists, we welcome any background with interest in the subject of the reading group. To become a member just send a mail to culturalmusicology[at]gmail.com and we add you to the mailing list. We only request that you let us know you’ll be coming, to make sure we don’t run out of space.
TIME AND PLACE
We meet on different days of the week, which may seem odd, but if you stick to a fixed weekday some people may never be able to come. See the list below:
In 2016 Leiden University is our host and we are meeting at Room 5A-23, Wassenaarseweg 52, Leiden (Faculteit der Sociale Wetenschappen).
February 4 (Thursday 3-6 pm): Introduction
March 11 (Friday 3-6 pm): Prehistory of music
April 20 (Wednesday 3-6 pm): Marx and Music / Artistic research
May 31 (Tuesday 3-6 pm): Benzon on memes
Meetings held in the academic year 2014/15
October 3: Kees van Hage, Introduction to his PhD, “A Tool of Remembrance: The Shofar in Modern Music, Literature and Art” (to be defended on September 16)
November 7: Klaus Kuiper will introduce Berio’s Remembering the Future
December 12 (we skipped December 5 because of Sinterklaas): Stephen Amico will introduce a chapter from his new book
February 6: Lila Ellen Gray will introduce her recent work on Fado
March 6: Music, Mysticism, Magic chapters from a reader
April 10: Music and Religion: Performing Tibetan Buddhism
May 8: Two articles: Jazz, Pärt and Religion
June 5: Two articles: Music, religion and the postcolonial condition
Program of the semester february – june 2014, focussing on postcolonial musicology:
February 7: postcolonial musicology (1)
March 7: postcolonial musicology (2)
April 4: postcolonial musicology (3)
May 9 (we’re closed on the 2d): creolisation (postcolonial musicology 4)
June 6: her voice is singing in the old style (Barbara Titus)
Program of the semester september – december 2013, focussing on “spheres”, in particular as a tradition of musical thought or music(o)-logic(a).
September 6: Sonospheres, an introduction by Birgit Abels
October 4: Kepler’s search for form and proportion introduced by Bert van der Schoot
November 1: Two articles by Simone Mahrenholz introduced by Wim van der Meer
December 6: Documentary Pieter de Rooij + an article by Wim van der Meer and Rebecca Erickson