This syllabus is being converted from a 12-week to a 6-week course. Please check frequently for corrections and updates. It will continue to be altered throughout the first week of class. It is a penultimate draft now.

Week 1 Tuesday, May 4: Introduction to the course

• "What's New in Women's History?" Linda Gordon in Feminist Studies / Critical Studies.
• "Feminism and the Writing and Teaching of History," A. Prentice and R. Pierson in Feminism.
• "An Introduction to Women, Music and Culture," in Women and Music in Cross-cultural Perspective, Koskoff.
• Introduction; "Bright Cecilia", Susan C. Cook & Judy S. Tsou in Cecilia Reclaimed.
• Introduction: On "difference", Ruth Solie in Musicology and Difference.

Video:

• Canadian Women Composers [Available for study in Music Library]
• West Coast Women Composers and Conductors. [Available for study in Music Library]

Week 1 Thursday, May 6: Canadian Voices

Highly recommended from reserve list:

• Preface and Part 1, K. Linda Kivi, Canadian Women Making Music.
• Violet Archer:
  • Composer was considered a trailblazer Globe and Mail, 24 February 2000, R10 Obituary.
  • Violet Archer & John Weinzweig (Interview) Canadian-Composer, v.4(2) Spring, 1993 pg 12-14.
• Jean Coulthard:
  • Composer's Career Spanned the 20th Century Globe and Mail, 11 March 2000, A25 Obituary.
  • At 85, composer is still hitting the high notes Globe and Mail, 23 September 1993, E2.
• Barbara Pentland:
  • Composer known for distinctive style Globe and Mail, 9 February 2000, R8 Obituary.
  • Notes towards a portrait of Barabara Pentland: issues of gender, class and colonialism in Canadian music by Davide G. Duke Musicworks (70) Spring 1998 pg 16-20.

• "Eternal Earth," Alexina Louie [Available for study in Music Library].
• Canadian Women Composers [Available for study in Music Library]

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Week 2 Tuesday, May 11: Public Voices, Private Voices

1. Ch 1 The Power of Class: Fanny Hensel and the Mendelssohn Family
2. Ch 2 The Illusion of India's "public" Dancers
3. Ch 3 "Fighting in Frills": Women and the Prix de Rome in French Cultural Politics

Video:

A Sigh And A Wish: Helen CreightonÕs Maritimes (2001) (NFB)

Synopsis: Helen Creighton helped define Maritime culture as we know it. Thanks to her, folk songs moved out of the kitchens and the fishing boats and into the mainstream. Top contemporary Maritime musicians, e.g., talents like Mary Jane Lamond and Lennie Gallant, describe how deeply they have been influenced by Creighton. For 60 years, Creighton sought out ghost stroies, superstitions and tales of buried treasure, as well as timeless songs handed down from generation to generation: fishing songs, work songs, love songs. "Farewell to Nova Scotia," which closed out CBC-TVÕs Sing Along Jubilee, is perhaps the most famous. This is a moving tribute to the genius of a self-taught folklorist and to the continuing strength of the deep oral traditions she helped preserve. But it also raises important questions. Does CreightonÕs collection truly reflect Maritime culture, or is it tinged by her own upper-middle-class assumptions? Credits Written and directed by Donna Davies. Produced by Kent Martin. Featuring: Pete Seeger, Raylene Rankin, Teresa Doyle, Lennie Gallant and Mary Jane Lamond. Narrated by Ashley MacIsaac.

Week 2 Thursday, May 13: Public Voices, Private Voices

Optional from reserve list:

• "Erasing the boundaries between public & private in women's performance traditions" Jennifer C. Post. Cecelia Reclaimed: Feminist Perspectives on Gender & Music. Susan C. Cook & Judy S. Tsou (Eds.). University of Illinois, 1994.
• In Historical Anthology of Music by Women, James R. Briscoe (Ed.). Read biography of:
  • Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (pp.113-114),
• In Women in Music: An Anthology of Source Readings from the Middle Ages to the Present, Carol Neuls- Bates (Ed.). Read the selection on:
  • Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel from the section 'Four Composers'

Mademoiselle: A Portrait Of Nadia Boulanger (1987)

Synopsis: This program shows interviews of Nadia Boulanger and former pupilsÑVirgil Thompson, Aaron Copland, Philip Glass, Louise Talma, Alice Hofstander, David Diamond, Michel Legrand, Emil Naoumoff and Quincy Jones.

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Week 3 Tuesday, May 18: Cloistered Voices

1. Ch 4 Music for the Love Feast: Hidegard of Bingen and the Song of Songs
2. Ch 5 Putting Bolognese Nun Musicians in their Place

Optional from reserve list:

• In Historical Anthology of Music by Women, James R. Briscoe (Ed.). Read biographies of:
  • Kassia (pp.1-2),
  • Hildegard von Bingen (pp.6-7),
  • Comtessa de Dia (pp.11-12)
• In Women in Music: An Anthology of Source Readings from the Middle Ages to the Present, Carol Neuls- Bates (Ed.), you could read the selections on:
  • Selections from the Middle Ages, pp 3-33

• Hildegard Von Bingen's Ordo Virtutum (70 min) 1997

  Synopsis:
  Written by one of the worlds first known female composers, Ordo Virtutum is the oldest extant Western musical drama. This stylized performance, sung to music that blends the meditative qualities of Gregorian chant with lyrical emotional expression, presents Hildegard von Bingens powerful vision of lifes difficult journey. The stellar medieval music ensemble Vox Animae treats this morality play as part of a living dramatic tradition, while also stressing the storys contemporary relevance. The Soul is portrayed by Ansy Boothroyd, the Devil by John Hancorn, and Humility by Evelyn Tubb.

  NOTE: We will not watch the entire film.

• Hildegard (1994)

  Synopsis: Hildegard of Bingen was one of the most remarkable women of the Middle Ages, an abbess and woman of God, a visionary, naturalist, playwright, mystic, political moralist and composer. Yet despite her outpouring of religious creativity, her visions were called into question and she was put on trial by the Church in 1148. This is the story of the events leading up to that trial and of the trial itself

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Week 3 Thursday, May 20: Aboriginal Voices Voices

• These articles are in the Encylopedia of Music in Canada. The EMC is a reference book in the Music Library and is available online through this link Music Collection, National Library
  You must read one of number one or two.
  1. Native North Americans in Canada
  2. Ethnomusicology, First Nations Research 1900-1980, and 1980-1990
  • Inuit Vocal Games
  • Powwow Singers
  • Innu Nikamu
  • Robbie Robertson
  • Buffy Saint Marie
• "From the musical experience of five Shoshone women" Judith Vander, Women in North American Indian Music. This book is on reserve in Jordan Music Library.

• Singing Our Stories (1999) NFB

  Synopsis: Using archival footage and personal interviews, examines the role of Indian women in the preservation and transmission of traditional songs and music. Five contemporary groups are featured: Ulali, three women of diverse tribes, who are singers and drummers ; the Monk-Sanders Family Singers of North Carolina ; Women Singers and Drummers of Old Agency, Alberta ; Namgis Traditional Singers, from Alert Bay, B.C. ; Zuni Olla Maidens, from New Mexico, and Walela, Rita and Priscilla Coolidge, and PriscillaÕs daughter, Laura Satterfield, whose heritage is Cherokee.

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Week 4 Tuesday, May 25: Empowered Voices

1. Ch 6 Voices of the People: Umm Kulthum
2. Ch 7 "Thanks for My Weapons in Battle--My Voice and the Desire to Use It": Women and Protest Music in the Americas
3. Ch 8 Tori Amos's Inner Voices

Week 4 Thursday, May 27: Empowered Voices

• Righteous Babes (1998)

  Synopsis:
  In this documentary, acclaimed filmmaker Pratibha Parmar (A Place of Rage, Warrior Marks) explores the intersection of feminism with popular music, focusing on the role of female recording artists in the 1990s and their influence on modern women. Parmar argues that, far from being dead, feminism has thrived and expanded its reach through the direct, aggressive, and revolutionary medium of rock music, and through the role models of performers like Madonna and Ani DiFranco. Intercuting performance footage with interviews, Parmar explores her thesis with some of the most outspoken female musicians, feminist theorists, and journalists of the UK and US, including Sinead OÕConnor, Skin (Skunk Anansie), Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders), Tori Amos, Ani DiFranco, Camille Paglia, and Gloria Steinem. The Righteous Babes offers a searing and timely critique of the commercialization of feminism through ÔGirl PowerÕ Spice Girls style, ditzy Ally McBeal and her trans-Atlantic counterpart, Bridget Jones. With critical insight and candidness, this powerful and timely documentary demonstrates the vibrancy and relevance of feminism to women and young girls today.

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Week 5 Tuesday, June 1: Lamenting Voices

1. Ch 9 Having Her Say: The Blues as Black Woman's Lament
2. Ch 10 Abandoned Heroines: Women's Voices in Handel's Canatas.

Required from reserve list:

• Make Some Noise (1995) NOT AVAILABLE due to damage.

  Synopsis:

  This explores the hip hop and rap scene in Toronto, featuring interviews with members of several groups, with DJs and producers. It discusses the influence of college radio stations on its popularity, the few women among the groups, sampling, stepping, graffiti and racism as part of the hip hop scene.

Week 5 Thursday, June 3: Lamenting Voices

Optional from reserve list:

• "From singing to lamenting: Women's musical role in a Greek village" Susan Auerbach. Women & Music in Cross-Cultural Perspective. Ellen Koskoff (Ed.) Greenwood, 1987.
• "The voice of lament: Female vocality & performative efficacy in the Finnish-Karelian itkuvirsi " Elizabeth Tolbert. Embodied Voices: Representing Female Vocality in Western Culture. Leslie C. Dunn & Nancy A. Jones (Eds.). Cambridge University, 1994.
• "The voice is the muscle of the soul" Frankie Armstrong. Glancing Fires. L. Saunders (Ed.). Women's Press, 1987.

• Wild Women DonÕt Have The Blues (1989)

  Synopsis: Through historic performances and recordings, this program captures the spirit of such pioneering blueswomen as Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey and others.

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Week 6 Tuesday, June 8: Gendered Voices and Performance

1. Ch 11 The Nightingale and the Partridge: Singing and Gender Among Prespa Albanians
2. Ch 12 Women Playing men in Italian Opera, 1810-1835
3. Ch 13 Shifting Selves: Embodies Metaphors in Nihon Buyo

Optional from reserve list:

• Dream Girls (1994)

  Synopsis: This video opens a door into the spectacular world of the Takarazuka Revue which is a highly successful theater company in Japan. All roles are played by women. On stage, the performers create a fantasy world where men are always handsome and sensitive and women are always glamorous and love is grand.

Week 6 Thursday, June 10: Gendered Voices and Performance

• The Sensual Nature Of Sound (1993) 58:14 min
  Synopsis:
  This video explores the work of four female composers, Laurie Anderson, Tania Leon, Meredith Monk and Pauline Oliveros. Interviews with the composers are interspersed with performances of their works.

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