Course content

This course will explore transgressions of societal norms and coded critiques of power structures in stage genres of the 17th and early 18th centuries. Among the genres the course will address are: English masques and plays with sung interludes; Italian opera seria and intermezzi comici; and French ballets and tragédies. Some of the topics this course will attend to include: sex-positive (homo-)erotic innuendo, gender-fluidity related to cross-dressing, anti-establishment critiques coded to circumvent censorship, master/servant and male/female role reversals, and the musical form these take in Baroque stage repertoires.

The course will also explore currents in Baroque thought, such as enthousiasmos, which informed the highly ornamented vocal exuberance of Baroque performance practice, such that singing itself and the star power of the performer constituted acts of embodied demarginalization and empowerment.

Brief readings from recent scholars examining the genealogy of sovereign power from the Baroque to the present will contextualize biopolitical mechanisms geared towards the discipline, surveillance, and submission of the body. The course therefore aims to analyze the Baroque stage's subversive challenges to power asymmetries as potential blueprints for contemporary modes of resistance.

Learning outcome

Knowledge:

An examinee who successfully completes MUSV1109

• demonstrates knowledge of a wide range of Baroque stage genres with music (e.g., opera, intermezzi comici, plays with sung interludes, ballets, masques).
• has an understanding of the interaction of music, theatre, culture, society and power in Seventeenth and Eighteenth-century stage genres.
• demonstrates familiarity with critical modalities implicit in Baroque music and dramaturgy.
• demonstrates knowledge and understanding of biopower, embodied agency, and the tensions between them.

Skills:

An examinee with a completed qualification in MUSV1109

• can critically analyze the intersection of Baroque theatre, music, culture, and mechanisms of social control and resistance.
• can recognize and interpret texts and music which circumvent and subvert power asymmetries through encoded meanings.
• has the ability to present knowledge, findings and critical insight in a coherent and convincing form, both orally and in written form.
• can engage with scholarly works on feminism, gender, sexuality, coding, and biopower, applying relevant theoretical insights to their own studies.

Learning methods and activities

Weekly instruction varies between lectures and seminar activities with compulsory attendance (at least 80%).

Weekly coursework includes: select readings, listening and viewing assignments related to readings, and in-class discussion of these assigned materials.

Compulsory assignments

• Satisfactory participation in compulsory instruction
• In-class participation in weekly group discussions

Recommended previous knowledge

Interest in and curiosity about the history of music, dramatic poetry, and theatre, and how these relate to philosophical and social issues about gender, sexuality and power.