This seminar will develop a selection of concepts from Cultural Studies in order to contextualise and critique music videos. We will also be concerned with the specific genre of music videos and their pop cultural contexts (i. e. with a view to other forms, like tiktok), their aesthetics, as well as what they can and cannot do.
Whilst some music videos seem to simply be pop songs in another medium, this seminar will centre the various ways this short form engages with specific aesthetics of the visual to emphasise components of the lyrics, or to draw attention to other pressing (e.g. political) concerns. As popular cultural texts, videos do not exist separate from their respective contexts, they create and critique them: Honing our tools for tracing these things as well as further developing our vocabularies for expressing these ideas will be central to the work of this seminar.
Videos that are from, or respond to, political situations and/or music trends beyond the UK and the US will also be included to create a broad anglophone basis.
A reader will be provided via Stud.IP.
This seminar is directed primarily at students completing teacher training for primary/elementary schools (Grundschullehramt). |
