Programme

The course deals with the relationship between music and society focusing on the following twofold aspects: a) “music as agency” in everyday life; b) the social construction of the carriers of musical texts and musicians. The teaching is divided into four parts, each of which will focus on different dimensions of music. The first part will provide to the students the analytical tools for understanding how and to what extent the music can contribute to construct the social meanings of experience, time and space. In everyday life music can function as technology of memory, emotions, cognition, constructing for the listeners frames, within which they are asked to experience their life. There are songs that contributed to defend human rights, others that became symbols of an epoch, historically and/or politically. Particular emphasis is placed on the study of the relations between music and individual memories, music and collective memories (e.g., in relation to social movements), and music and cultural traumas of a community. The second part will address and problematize the notion of musical genius, by showing its social aspects. It will focus on the relations among genius, ethnicity, gender and social class. The third part will focus on the impact of music on educational processes, documenting how and to what extent music is a fundamental resource in educational settings. The fourth part deals with the social transformation of music production and reception in the age of digital platforms and it analyses the emerging processes of potential colonization and creolization of the sound imagery and soundscape.

Core Documentation

1) Anna Lisa Tota (2000), Musica e vita quotidiana: la composizione musicale dell’esperienza sociale, «Konsequenz», vol. 3-4, pp. 63-72.
2) Anna Lisa Tota (2001), When Orff meets Guiness: music in advertising as a form of cultural hybrid, «Poetics. Journal of Empirical Research on Literature, the Media and the Arts», vol. 29, pp. 109-123.
3) Tia DeNora (2001), Memoria e tradizione nella costruzione del talento di Beethoven, in La memoria contesa. Studi sulla comunicazione sociale del passato, a cura di Anna Lisa Tota, Milano, Angeli, pp. 172-196.
4) Tia De Nora (2000), Corpo e genere al piano. Repertorio, tecnologia e comportamento nella Vienna di Beethoven, «Rassegna italiana di Sociologia», n. XII, n. 2, aprile –giugno, pp. 165-188.
5) Pinan Güran and Tia DeNora (2016), Remembering through music: Turkish diasporic identities in Berlin, in Anna Lisa Tota and Trever Hagen (Eds.), Routledge International Handbook of Memory Studies, London, Routledge, pp. 233-246.
6) Tia DeNora (1999), Music as a Technology of the Self, «Poetics. Journal of Empirical Research on Literature, the Media and the Arts», vol. 27, pp. 31-56.
7) Howard Becker (2013), American Popolar Song, in Sara Towe Horsfall, Jan-Martijn Meij, Meghan D. Probstfield (eds.) Music Sociology. Examining the Role of Music in Social Life, London, Routledge, pp. 19-29.
8) William G. Roy and Timothy J. Dowd (2013), What is Sociological about Music? in Sara Towe Horsfall, Jan-Martijn Meij, Meghan D. Probstfield (eds.) Music Sociology. Examining the Role of Music in Social Life, London, Routledge, pp.36-50.
9) Luis Velasco-Pufleau (2021), Listening to Terror Soundscapes. Sounds, Echoes, and Silences in Listening Experiences of Survivors of the Bataclan Terrorist Attack in Paris, «Conflict and Society: Advances in Research», vol. 7, pp. 60–77.
10) TiaDeNora, Wolfgang Schmid, Fraser Simpson and Gary Ansdell (2022) “Late” Musical Learning. What is it, Why, and for Whom, «Scuola Democratica», Special issue Arting Education. Reinventing Citizens of the Future, guest editors Anna Lisa Tota and Antonietta De Feo, vol. 2, pp. 239-260.
11) Arts as Agency. The potential of the Arts in Educational Settings, «Scuola Democratica», Special issue on Arting Education. Reinventing Citizens of the Future, guest editors Anna Lisa Tota and Antonietta De Feo, vol. 2, pp. 225-238.
12) Tia DeNora (2016), Health and Music in Everyday Life. A theory of practice, in Music-in-Action. Selected Essays in Sonic Ecology, London and New York, Routledge, pp.157-173.


The articles (from 1 to 12) will be available for the students on the website http://filosofiacomunicazionespettacolo.uniroma3.it (see the professor's webpage and Moodle platform).

Type of delivery of the course

The course will be based on traditional lectures.

Type of evaluation

The evaluation will take place on the basis of two tests: 1) the oral presentation of a text chosen from the list of suggested readings. Students will have to present the content of the text and make their own contribution. It will be possible to propose the analysis of one of the aspects, topics, analytical categories addressed in the selected text and/or the formulation of research questions, provoked by the reading. At the beginning of the course, students will be asked to express their preference for the date and content of their presentations. 2) The final exam will be written and it will last two hours. The students will be asked to reply extensively to three questions.