Skip to main content

MA Social Anthropology (Ethnomusicology)

If you choose the specialism in Ethnomusicology, you will study the following modules:

1. (ANT7007) Anthropological Methods in Context and Practice (Semester 1)

Key objectives: To teach you how to use the main methods of anthropological field research and to
make you critically aware of the place of such methods in the discipline.

Teaching methods: One seminar per week for twelve weeks throughout the first semester.

Learning outcomes: A good understanding of the methodological distinctiveness of anthropology; a good knowledge of the appropriateness of anthropological methods – quantitative as well as qualitative; the ability to critique the methodology underpinning anthropological work; and the capacity to put anthropological methods into practice.

Assessment methods: Completion of one assignment (100%).

2. (ANT7013): The Anthropology of Music (Semester 1)

Content: The module will focus on the main theoretical approaches in the anthropology of music, particularly those of recent and current influence. These include: debates surrounding the analysis of 'music as text'; approaches to the study of musical performance; approaches to the study of the construction of musical meaning; issues in the representation of musical ethnography; and reflexivity in musicological research.

Key objectives: To offer students a grounding in current theoretical orientations within the
anthropology of music which will enable them to produce a dissertation in this field and, together with the remainder of the programme, can form a sound basis for further research.

Teaching methods: Two seminars per week for six weeks (12 sessions), mainly student led.

Assessment methods: One extended essay of 4000-4500 words.

3. (ANT7008): Anthropological Perspectives (Semester 2)

Content: The module focuses on a core of influential analytical perspectives, studied through readings that demonstrate both the continuities and shifts in the discipline. The topics covered include anthropological and local perspectives; philosophical approaches in anthropology; new insights from studies on suffering, trauma, memory, and the emotions; visual anthropology as part of the debate of ‘ways of seeing’; perspectives on environmentalism, materiality, space, place and landscape; the connections between tradition, modernity and authenticity; and finally, human rights and their connection to the person and morality.

Assessment methods: One essay of 4000 to 4500 words.

Key objectives: To offer students more advanced understandings of anthropological perspectives, and to prepare them for the main specialist areas available at MA level.

Teaching methods: One seminar per week for twelve weeks throughout the second semester.

Learning outcomes: A sound knowledge of the distinctiveness of anthropological perspectives and of the continuities and shifts in the discipline.

4. (ANT7050): Reading and Writing in Contemporary Ethnomusicology (Semester 2)

The module will review a number of ethnographic texts in ethnomusicology produced over the last ten years, texts chosen for their representativeness of general theoretical trends in ethnomusicology and for the controversy and accolades with which they have been received by an ethnomusicological leadership. Each text will be analysed for the structure of their arguments, for the ways in which claims to authority are established and for the theoretical lineages and debates in which the authors participate.

This module should enable students to offer an advanced evaluation of key musical ethnographic texts in terms of the structure of their arguments; and to show how these texts fit with current theoretical discussions in the field of ethnomusicology. Students should also develop to provide an advanced understanding of how ethnographic 'authority' is sought in ethnomusicology.

5. (ANT7014): Dissertation

Content: Students will be required to prepare a research proposal and a dissertation, the topic of which will be selected in consultation with a supervisor who has expertise in the selected specialist area. The supervisor will normally, but not necessarily, be one of the teachers on the student's chosen specialist module. Students should submit to the module convenor a working title and brief abstract, on the basis of which s/he will allocate supervisors for Dissertation research. The deadline for this is Friday 5 December 2008. In consultation with supervisors, MA students will then prepare a research proposal and risk assessment by 30 April 2009. The format of MA dissertation proposals should be as follows: proposal abstract (approx. 250 words); justification (approx. 1,500 words); methodology (approx. 1,500 words); bibliography. It should be submitted together with a Risk Assessment Form. The dissertation should be 12,000 words, submitted by 15 September 2009.

Key objectives: This module will set out to develop the following skills in employing methods of data construction and analysis to address anthropological questions in the particular sub-field to which each of the new MA Degrees relate:

• Retrieval of information from a range of sources.
• Research planning (setting research questions, scheduling, budgeting, risk assessment).
• Field research skills, such as establishing contact and rapport with people, asking questions sensitively, conducting interviews, applying questionnaires, and engaging in participant observation.

Written and verbal feedback will be given to students on their performance and used both to elaborate upon assessments of their work and to give direction and encouragement for further development of subject-specific skills.

Teaching methods: Direct teaching and training in connection with the dissertation will be provided via one-to-one supervision by an appropriate member of staff. As convenor of this module, the Postgraduate Coordinator will be responsible for allocating supervisors.

Assessment methods: The dissertation will be marked by two internal examiners and the external examiner for postgraduate modules in Social Anthropology. Although the research proposal will not be given a mark, its submission will be a formal requirement for completion of the module. This module will be double weighted – the dissertation mark will be treated as two final marks when calculating the final degree.