Instructor: Dr. Vladislav Beronja [email protected] Office: BUR 464 Office Hours: Thursday 1-2p, Friday 1-3p, and by appointment Meets: MW 2:30-4p SZB 330 Course #: 43580 REES 325/ EUS 347/ WGS 345: Punks & Divas in Southeastern Europe: Popular Music and Cultural Identity in the Balkans COURSE DESCRIPTION “What kind of music do you listen to?” can be a loaded question. Based on your taste in music, others will invariably place you in a specific (sub)culture, class, lifestyle, and even speculate about your political commitments. Your taste in music can make or break a friendship, produce feelings of camaraderie as well as of repulsion. For some time now, scholars have viewed popular music as a dynamic cultural field, where various social meanings—attached to race, nationality, gender, and sexuality—are constantly being produced, contested, and negotiated among different communities of listeners. This insight into music as a crucial site of political struggle and collective identity formation will be the starting point in our analysis of popular music genres in the Balkans, a region of Europe that has undergone sweeping historical changes in the 20th and 21st centuries, including the fall of Communism and—in the case of former Yugoslavia—the formation of seven new nation-states through a series of bloody and brutal wars. We will begin the class by examining the emergence of Western pop genres, such as punk and new wave rock, in late socialism (in the 1980s), which became associated with urban youth subcultures, sophisticated irony, and liberalization of the one-party state. From there, we will move to the analysis of “turbo-folk,” a curious mixture of contemporary electronic and traditional folk music that became extremely popular in the 1990s, when the conflict in Yugoslavia was at its peak. Featuring extravagant and scandalous Balkan divas, roughly equivalent to Rihanna and Lady Gaga in the U.S., turbo-folk was (and still is) connected with nationalism, the new mafia elite, and general cultural decline. We will watch videos, examine arguments for and against turbo-folk, and try to pin down its political functions, cultural meanings, and recent transformations. We will end the class by examining new trends in Balkan popular music, such hip-hop and Balkan brass, and their relationship to recent protest movements, minority politics, and claims of cultural (in)authenticity. In addition to scholarly literature, we will make a substantial use of a class Tumblr blog, featuring music videos, song lyrics, links to other blogs, album covers and other visual and audio materials, which will allow us to fully immerse ourselves in different sounds, scenes, fashion styles, and communities we will be studying throughout this course. Learning Objectives: By examining the changes in the production and consumption of popular music in the Balkans, students will gain an understanding of larger historical shifts both in the region and on a more global scale. Additionally, students will refine their analytical and critical thinking skills by situating cultural objects in a dynamic historical and political context and by reflecting on the social effects and assumptions surrounding the consumption of popular music more generally. Our discussion of Balkan popular music will be guided by the following questions: • How does popular music shape collective identities? • What is the role of popular music in large-scale social and political transformation? • How is popular music used as a medium of political mobilization by the state and civil actors? • How do musical tastes produce, reflect, and reinforce social differences and hierarchies? • Why are claims of cultural authenticity often attached to popular music? Who makes these claims and why? • How do different music genres function in different political and cultural contexts? Grading: 10%-class participation and attendance* 10% map quiz of the Balkan countries/major historical events^ 25%-weekly discussion post (200-250 words)** 25%-take-home midterm exam (short essay format)$ 5%-outline and bibliography for digital project essay 25%-research essay (4000-5000 words) for digital multimedia project# *Regular attendance is absolutely crucial if you want to fully and dynamically engage in this seminar. Missing one meeting means missing a large chunk of the narrative about the development of Balkan popular music against the backdrop of large- scale political and social changes that we are attempting to collectively construct and critically examine in this class. More than three (3) unexcused absences will result in lowering of your total grade by 10% for each subsequent absence. Thus, if you have 4 unexcused absences 10% will be subtracted from your total grade, 20% for 5 unexcused absences etc. ^You will receive a short study guide prior to the quiz; any other information will be covered in class lectures. **During this class I will post music videos and translations of lyrics taken from the class Tumblr blog. Your grade will be based on weekly comments on the Canvas Discussion Forum (minimum 200 words in length) related to the units we’re covering in class and referring either to the class readings, the Tumblr materials, or both. $The take home exam will be in the form of four argumentative and/or analytical essay questions. It will be due on March 13, on the last class session before spring break. #The final project will take the form of a class Scalar website on different aspects of Balkan (and global) popular music or related topic. Throughout the semester, you will develop an instructor-approved research topic/question, compile a working bibliography, select the necessary audio and visual media, and use one digital humanities tool (for data visualization, network analysis, timeline etc.) to construct a public-facing webpage/research paper. While everyone will have a chance to upload their research on the Scalar website, only the 10 most polished and compelling pieces will be published in the final iteration of the website. Grading Scale: Performance will be graded according to the following percentage standards: A: 93-100% B: 83-86% C: 73-76% D: 63-66% A-: 90-92% B-: 80-82% C-: 70-72 F: 0-62% B+: 87-89 C+: 77-79 D+: 67-69 Other General Information: I understand that the pressures of student life can be overwhelming at times. I urge you to practice self-care as much as possible and to take advantage of the university resources for mental health care and physical wellbeing. If you feel overwhelmed by this class or the workload at any point, please contact me over email or approach me after class and we can try to make alternative arrangements where possible. 1) Any student with a documented disability who requires academic accommodations should contact Services for Students with Disabilities at 471-6259 (voice) or 1-866-329- 3986 (Video Phone) as soon as possible to request an official letter outlining authorized accommodations. 2) I expect all students to abide by the UT honor code. http://deanofstudents.utexas.edu/sjs/spot_honorcode.php 3) In particular, I take plagiarism VERY seriously. Plagiarism is a serious violation of academic integrity. In simplest terms, this occurs if you represent as your own work any material that was obtained from another source, regardless how or where you acquired it. 4) Please notify me in advance about absences due to religious holidays. You will not be penalized for doing so, but you will still be required to make up the missed class as outlines above. * All guns must be concealed at all times in line with the Campus Concealed Carry legislation. If an/the instructor or student(s) sees any sign of a gun in class, the UT police will be called immediately per the UT implementation policy for the statute. * For responsibilities of concealed gun permit holders on campus, see UT’s information page: https://campuscarry.utexas.edu/students * Here is UT’s general information website about campus carry: https://campuscarry.utexas.edu/ * We have excluded guns from our offices as UT implementation policy allows. The first day of class we will provide oral notification of this. If you are a licensed to carry permit holder and wish to come to my office hours, you must either store your gun in your car or at home before you come to my office as required by UT policy or you may arrange with me to use Skype during office hours. SCHEDULE WEEK 1 Jan 23: Introduction WEEK 2 Jan 28: Theorizing Popular Music I: Sounds, Aesthetics, Technologies 1. Simon Firth, “Toward a Popular Aesthetic” in Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music (Harvard UP, 1998) 2. Brian Longhurst, “Introduction: Constraints and Creativity – Arguments and Framework” in Popular Music and Society (Polity, 2007) Jan 30: Theorizing Popular Music II: Genres, Tastes, Communities 1. Jennifer C. Lena, “Music Genres” in Banding Together: How Communities Create Genres in Popular Music (Princeton UP, 2012). 2. Evan Kindley, “Love, Factionally” publicbooks.org WEEK 3 Feb 4: Histories: What was Yugoslavia and what came after? 1. Catherine Baker, The Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s (Palgrave, 2015) 2. Film: Whose Is This Song? (dir. Adela Peeva, 2003) Feb 6: Histories: Popular Music and “Balkanization” 1. Catherine Baker, The Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s (Palgrave, 2015) WEEK 4 Feb 11: Rock n’ Roll Socialism I 2. Catherine Baker, The Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s (Palgrave, 2015) 1. In class: QUIZ Feb 13: Rock n’ Roll Socialism II 1. Ljubica Spaskovska, “Pockets of Freedom: the youth sphere and its spaces of negotiation and dissent” in The Last Yugoslav Generation 2. Albums: Pankrti, Državni ljubimci (Darlings of the State, 1982) WEEK 5 Feb 18: New Wave Ironists: Belgrade & Zagreb 1. Film: Happy Child (dir. Igor Mirković, 2003) 2. Reading: Dalibor Mišina, “New Wave: In the Rhythm of the Compressor” in Shake, Rattle and Roll 3.