- MUTH 5680 / 6680: Music and Psychoanalysis
- Mondays: 1-4 MU 322
- Instructor: Dr. David Bard-Schwarz
- Office: MU 104
- E-mail: david.schwarz@unt.edu
Office Hours: Thursdays 1-4
In this class we will explore music and psychoanalysis (Freud, Lacan, Žižek). This work has been widely applied to cultural theory, film, art, philosophy, and critical theory; my work has focused on bringing it to music studies, and I will refer throughout the term to my books (on reserve at the library):
- David Schwarz, Listening Subjects: Music, Psychoanalysis, Culture (Duke UP 1997)
- David Schwarz, Listening Awry: Music and Alterity in German Culture (U of Minnesota Press, 2006)
- David Bard-Schwarz, An Introduction to Electronic Art through the Teachings of Jacques Lacan (Strangest Thing) (Routledge, UK 2014)
In addition, the following texts are required:
- Mladen Dolar, A Voice and Nothing More, (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006).
- Gaze and Voice as Love Objects. Edited by Renata Saleci and Slavoj Žižek (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1996)
- Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982)
- Slavoj Žižek, Looking Awry. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992).
- 08.24.2015
introduction to psychoanalysis and music: Freud and Lacan and us
- 08.31.2015
the sonorous envelope
- 09.14.2015
the (visual) mirror stage
- 09.21.2015
the gaze
- reading
Lacan, excerpt from Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis: pdf
"Intruder" from Listening Subjects
Chapters 2 and 3 of gaze and voice as love objects
- music
YOUTUBE: Peter Gabriel, Intruder
Schubert, Der Doppelgaenger: pdf
facsimile autograph of heine settings from schwanengesang: pdf
- reading
- 09.28.2015
repetition
- 10.05.2015
repetition (continued)
- 10.12.2015
the voice
- reading
Barthes, "The Grain of the Voice":pdf
Read the first two chapters of Dolar
- music
YOUTUBE: replica of Kempelin's Speaking Machine
YOUTUBE: Panzera sings Doppelgaenger (in a minor)
YOUTUBE: Fischer-Dieskau sings Doppelgaenger (in a minor)
YOUTUBE Berio, Sequenza III (Cathy Berberian)
YOUTUBE Berg, Lulu Act III, The Death of Lulu
YOUTUBE Casta Diva, Renée Fleming
YOUTUBE Diamanda Galas, "The Law of the Plague"
YOUTUBE Brahms, Violin Concerto I (Huberman)
YOUTUBE Brahms, Violin Concerto I (Chang)
- reading
- 10.19.2015
the signifier
- 10.26.2015
the other and the Other
- reading:
Evans, definitions of other / Other: pdf
Chapter on Oi from Listening Subjects
Chapter on German War songs from Listening Awry
Chapter on transference from Lacan, Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis optional
Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses": pdf
- music
See player above
Berg, Lulu Act III, scene ii: Jack's entrance: pdf
YOUTUBE: Star-Spangled Banner, U.S. Marine Band
YOUTUBE: Jimi Hendrix, the Star-Spangled Banner (Woodstock 1969)
- reading:
- 11.02.2015
trauma
- 11.09.2015
Kant, the beautiful and the sublime
- reading
- music
YOUTUBE: Enno Poppe Interzone Part II
YOUTUBE: Klaus-Steffen Mahnkopf Angela Nova II
YOUTUBE Paert, Fratres (Kronos)
YOUTUBE Schumann, Im wunderschoenen Monat mai (Wunderlich)
Schumann, Im wunderschoenen Monat Mai: pdf
YOUTUBE Wagner, Prelude and Transfiguration from Tristan and Isolde (Toscanini)
- 11.16.2015
Agamben, bare life, and music
- 11.23.2015
re-scheduled
- 11.30.2015
student presentations
- Kaja 1:00 to 1:15 Scratching Beneath the Surface: Analyzing Chopin's Prelude No. 21 in B flat Major
- Kenny 1:20 to 1:35 Trauma and a Second Death: Radioheads How to Disappear Completely
- Jeremy 1:40 to 1:55 The effect of repetition on the form of Chopin's Piano Sonata in B-flat minor
- Adam 2:00 to 2:15 The symbolic, imaginary, and the real in Rachmaninoff's vocalise
- Tim 8:30 to 8:45 Shadows of Meanings: A Psychoanalytic Reading of Luciano Beriošs Visage
- Zach 2:50 to 3:05 Locating the Object Voice in Aperghis and Mahnkopf
- Andrew 3:10 to 3:25 (title here)
- Corey 3:30 to 3:45 The Search for the Real in Xenakis' Works for Solo Percussion
- 12.03.2015
Suture from The Subject of Semiotics by Kaja Silverman
student presentations (evening session)
- Alyssa 7:00 to 7:15 Repetition and Silence: Expressions of Freudian Bereavement in Eric Whitacre's "When David Heard"
- Jennifer 7:20 to 7:35 Signification in Schumann's "Am leuchtenden Sommermorgen
- Cheryl 7:40 to 7:55 Repetition Under Cover As Reinterpretation
- Ermir 8:00 to 8:15 he Lacanian impossibility of becoming invisible in Salvatore Sciarrino's Vanitas
the last movement in Salvatore Sciarrino's Vanitas (for voice, cello, and piano)
Here is the sung text as well:
Das Mundlein von Korallen | Wird Ungestalt.| Mit Rosen schmuck ich | Haupt und Haare, | Die Rosen tauch ich in den Wein, | Komm Trost der Nacht, | o Nachtigall! | Lass deine Stimm mit | Freudenschall | Aufs lieblichste erklingen! | Die Rose zieret meine Floten.
- Alexander 8:30 to 8:45 Cultural Institutions and the Lacanian mirror stage
- Patrick 8:50 to 9:05 Distorted Voices in TesseracT's "Messenger"
- Jay 9:10 to 9:25 The Aesthetic Voice and Musical Meaning
- Bryan 9:30 to 9:45 The Subject in Music: Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Musical Drama
- 12.10.2015
Seminar Paper Due
The seminar paper should be an original piece of musical-theoretical scholarship bringing together at least one precise aspect of Freudian or Lacanian Psychoanalysis with (a) musical text(s).
All aspects described in writing guidelines must be followed. Choose any documentation protocol you wish, and make sure all documentation is 100% accurate and complete.
I'll be happy to consider special projects instead of a paper; these include making an app for a mobile device, making a web-based application as a multi-media "paper", making animations to illustrate psychoanalytic / musical structures, etc.
The syllabus below is a bare framework for our work; it will be expanded substantially as our course gets underway.