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Topics: Music, society, politics, identity.
Disciplines: Cultural Studies, Sociology, Philosophy, Psychology.
Other skills: Audio production, Media writing,
Admission requirements:
This course is an (extracurricular) Honours Class: an elective course within the Honours College programme. Third year students who don’t participate in the Honours College, have the opportunity to apply for a Bachelor Honours Class. Students will be selected based on i.a. their motivation and average grade.
Description:
Music surrounds us everywhere. Many people would say they cannot live without it. But what makes music so important in our contemporary society?
This course settles scores with the traditional view that music is an autonomous art form that works independently from social, political, economic, and technological developments. However, that music operates within society does not mean that it merely represents society. Music does much more than that. Music is active and dynamic, constitutive not merely of values but of trajectories and styles of conduct. It plays an important role in shaping societies and identities. The scope of music reaches far beyond the concert hall, for it accompanies our traveling, sports, shopping, and working activities. It speaks to us and silences us; it sways and soothes us. All in all, music provides key parameters that can be used to frame our experiences, perceptions, feelings, and behaviours. These and other matters will be discussed in this Honours Class.
Based on a close reading of sociological and philosophical texts, this course invites students to think on the different roles, positions and functions of music and musicians in society – including aesthetic, political, ethical, and emancipatory functions.
Course objectives:
Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
identify roles, functions, and positions of music and musicians in contemporary society;
appraise musical materials and practices from diverse philosophical, sociological, and cultural perspectives;
close-read complex theoretical sources about music;
relate music to philosophy/sociology and vice versa;
evaluate and articulate their own listening experiences and ideas about music.
Programme and timetable:
The sessions of this class will take place on the following Mondays from 19.00 - 21.00:
Session 1: 29 September 2025
General Introduction
Session 2: 6 October 2025
Music and Autonomy
Reading: Wolff (1987)
Session 3: 13 October 2025
Music and Commodification
Assignment #1 is due
Readings: Adorno (1945), Ahlbom et al. (2023).
Session 4: 20 October 2025
Music and Social Stratification
Assignment #2 is due
Readings: Bourdieu (1984), Prior (2011).
Session 5: 27 October 2025
Music and Identity
Assignment #3 is due
Reading: Frith (1996)
Session 6: 3 November 2025
Music and Discipline
Assignment #4 is due
Readings: Foucault (1980), Bergeron (1992)
Session 7: 10 November 2025
Field Trip: Peel Slowly and See Festival
Session 8: 17 November 2025
Guest Lecture: Pop Music and the Attention Economy
Reading: Findeisen (2015)
Session 9: 24 November 2025
Music as Labor
Reading: Bain (2024)
Session 10: 1 December 2025
Music and Contemporary Media
Reading: Pontara & Volgsten (2017)
Location:
Lipsius building, room 1.21
Reading list:
Ahlbom, C-P., Roggeveen, A.L., Grewal, D., & Nordfält, J. (2023). Understanding how music influences shopping on weekdays and weekends. Journal of Marketing Research, 60(5), 987-1007.
Adorno, T.W. (1945). A social critique of radio music. The Kenyon Review, spring, 229-235.
Bain, V. (2024). The original gig economy: gendered precarious working in the UK music industry. In C. Forson, G. Healy, M.B. Öztürk & A. Tatli (Eds.), Research Handbook on Inequalities and Work (pp. 270-384). Edward Elgar Publishing.
Bergeron, K. (1992). Prologue: Disciplining music. In K. Bergeron & P.V. Bohlman (Eds.), Disciplining Music: Musicology and its Canons (pp. 1-9). University of Chicago Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (pp. 1-7). Harvad University Press.
Findeisen, F. (2015). The Addiction Formula: A Holistic Approach to Writing Captivating, Memorable Hit Songs (pp. 25-49). Albino Publishing.
Foucault, M. (1980). Body/power. In C. Gordon (Ed.), Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977 (pp. 55-62). Pantheon Books.
Frith, S. (1996). Music and Identity. In S. Hall & P. Du Gay (Eds.), Questions of Cultural Identity (pp. 108–127), Sage Publications.
Prior, N. (2011). Critique and Renewal in the Sociology of Music: Bourdieu and Beyond. Cultural Sociology, 5(1), 121-138.
Pontara, T., Volgsten, U. (2017). Musicalization and Mediatization. In O. Driessens, G. Bolin, A. Hepp, S. Hjarvard (Eds.), Dynamics Of Mediatization (247-269). Palgrave Macmillan.
Wolff, Janet (1987). Foreword: The ideology of autonomous art. In R. Leppert & S. McClary (Eds.), Music and Society. The Politics of Composition, Performance, and Reception (pp. 1-12). Cambridge University Press.
Other possible literature will be announced in class or via Brightspace.
Course load and teaching method:
This course is worth 5 ECTS, which means the total course load equals 140 hours.
Seminars, guest lectures, field trip: 10 sessions of 2 hours (attendance is mandatory);
Literature reading & practical work: 55 hours;
Self-study: 5 hours;
Assignments & final project: 60 hours.
Assessment methods:
40% Seminar multimedia assignments: four submissions weighted 10% each.
Assignment 1: Commodification (13 October 2025)
Assignment 2: Social Stratification (20 October 2025)
Assignment 3: Identity (27 October 2025)
Assignment 4: Discipline (3 November 2025)
50% Podcast: including a script of about 2,000 words and audio production (15 December 2025)
10% active participation in class (throughout)
It is not required to successfully complete all partial exams in order to pass this course. Students are allowed to compensate a ‘fail’ (grades up to and including 5.0).
The assessment methods will be further explained in the first session of the class.
Brightspace and uSis:
Brightspace will be used in this course. Upon admission students will be enrolled in Brightspace by the teaching administration.
Please note: students are not required to register through uSis for the Bachelor Honours Classes. Your registration will be done centrally.
Application process:
Submitting an application for this course is possible from Monday, 25 August 2025 up to and including Sunday, 7 September 2025 23:59 through the link on the Honours Academy student website.
Note: students don’t have to register for the Bachelor Honours Classes in uSis. The registration is done centrally before the start of the class.
Contact:
Dr. Carlos Roos Muñoz: c.m.roos.munoz@hum.leidenuniv.nl