Simon Fraser University
Engaging the World

Course Outlines

Spring 2015 - WL 320 D100

Interdisciplinary Approaches World Literature (3)

Class Number: 5927

Delivery Method: In Person

Overview

  • Course Times + Location:

    Jan 6 – Apr 13, 2015: Wed, 2:30–5:20 p.m.
    Burnaby

  • Prerequisites:

    45 units.

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Intermediate seminar on a topic in world literature. This course may be repeated for credit when different topics are offered.

COURSE DETAILS:

Music/Theatre/Performance: World Literature’s Hidden Soundscape
As global music video attests, the contemporary world music scene includes a bewildering array of styles and aims.  Whether one thinks of the Broadway musical, South African jive, or modern adaptions of the Kabuki theatre of Japan, the performing arts continue to evolve in surprising ways – not least when the digital era is brought into the mix.  So, too, if today’s musical theatre effusions offer cross-cultural possibilities, the transnational aspirations and borrowings of music video also offer a realm of investigation at the nexus of World Literature, pop culture, and national understandings: in short, we will be studying a large number of films, videos, and performance clips.  

This interactive course invites students to present projects on realms of musical performance ranging, in its early phases, from the lyrical tragedy of the Greeks to Sanskrit drama to the Peking Opera, and, at its most recent, to contemporary explorations into the performance and boundary-hopping potential of Korea’s K-pop, the Bollywood musical, or the soundstages of the West.  Our focus falls into three parts: in the first weeks we will review the history of musical drama around the world; the middle section of our investigation we will concentrate on the tools of multimedia research and performance; and lastly, students will present research on a musical performance genre of their choice, allowing us to blend global understandings of opera, punk, or cinematic musical, with the discourses of global literary work on the meaning of performance and sound in contemporary culture.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

  • Developed understanding of World Literature as an interdisciplinary practice                                     
  • Comprehension of the terms and concepts of performance-based criticism                                     
  • Ability to cognize and compare musical or cinematic “texts” as social discourses                                    
  • Ability to extend comparisons across different cultural media 

Grading

  • Participation 15%
  • Short Paper 15%
  • Midtern 20%
  • Term Paper 30%
  • Presentation: World Music Video 20%

NOTES:

Provided Texts - excerpts from:

  • Popular Theatre: A Sourcebook  / Ed. Joel Schechter (Routledge 2002) 
  • Performance Studies: An Introduction / Richard Schechner  Routledge 2006 
  • Theatre at the Crossroads of Culture / Patrice Pavis  Routledge 1991 [ONLINE] 
  • Musical Theatre: a History / John Kenrick (Bloomsbury Academic 2010) 
  • Diasporas and Interculturalism in Asian Performing Arts: Translating Traditions Hae-kyung Um (Routledge 2004) [ONLINE] 
  • Money for Nothing: A History of the Music Video from the Beatles to the White Stripes Saul Austerlitz (Continuum 2006)
  • Popular Music & the New Auteur: Visionary Filmmakers after MTV  Arved Ashby (Oxford 2013)

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

Theatre Histories: An Introduction, 2nd Edition, Routledge (2010)  Phillip Zarrilli, B. McConachie, G. Williams, C. Sorgenfrei (eds.) 
ISBN: 978-0415462242

Registrar Notes:

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