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EN3219   Reading Popular Music

Academic year(s): 2024-2025

Key information

SCOTCAT credits : 30

ECTS credits : 15

Level : SCQF level 9

Semester: 2

Planned timetable: 2.00 pm Mon

This module combines literary and cultural studies approaches in surveying American and British popular music in the postwar era, but especially in the period 1960-1990. We propose to study songs as texts and as cultural artefacts which open up questions about the status of popular music as art, about the politics of popular music, about authenticity and appropriation, and about the relations between technology and capital.

Relationship to other modules

Pre-requisite(s): Before taking this module you must pass EN2003 and pass EN2004

Anti-requisite(s): You cannot take this module if you take MO3524

Learning and teaching methods and delivery

Weekly contact: 1 lecture (x11 weeks), 1 tutorial (x11 weeks), and 2 optional consultative hours

Assessment pattern

As used by St Andrews: Coursework = 100%


Re-assessment: exam = 100%

Personnel

Module coordinator: Dr M C Augustine
Module teaching staff: Dr Matthew Augustine, Dr Harriet Archer

Intended learning outcomes

  • Demonstrate familiarity with key terms and concepts for understanding popular music
  • Demonstrate understanding of the development of popular music and its study in post-war Britain and America
  • Recognise how popular music interacts with a variety of contexts, from the social and political to the industrial and technological
  • Demonstrate awareness of different approaches to reading and writing about music