Music, Gender, and Sexuality Studies: A Teacher’s Guide

Abstract

In the small but vibrant community of musicology Twitter, colleagues sometimes share their course ideas, descriptions, or complete lecture outlines to aid, and occasionally, to inspire others. I have often found myself wishing I was a student today, or a fly on the wall, attending these courses that tackle core issues about current musicology, with the benefit of all of the inspiring research that has accumulated over the years and the lessons that have been learned about good pedagogical practice. Jacqueline Warwick’s book Music, Gender, and Sexuality Studies: A Teacher’s Guide is the next best thing to sitting in a classroom yourself. In this book, Warwick argues for teaching intersectional musicology, provides sample lectures, and suggests classroom discussion topics. The book opens a window to the teaching practices of an established scholar and it represents a useful guide for anyone attempting to expand and deepen their pedagogical approach. Twitter discussions about what an intersectional approach might mean for music education have been widespread lately. Almost since the birth of feminist musicology, Beethoven has been a contested figure, as the foremost canonical male composer, with accusations of “canceling” him and, by extension, the whole canon of Western music stirring up impassioned debate. In this context of polemical debate, Warwick’s book is a welcome, unagitated voice that provides two arguments for teaching intersectionality in and through music. First, Warwick insists that in the context of Western music history and gender, merely adding historical facts about women alongside the established canon is not adequate. The point is not to “cancel” Beethoven and replace him with Clara Schumann, but to acknowledge how differently the two composers established themselves in their craft and in the eyes of their colleagues and critics. Societal constraints placed on women composers simply did not allow for the type of expansive careers enjoyed by Beethoven and many other men. Warwick’s second claim is that composition should not be the sole, nor the first, platform from which to examine the value of music. Beethoven or Wagner, the Beatles, or even Kanye West, can still provide examples of “good” music, but an intersectional approach investigates the values implied in definitions of “good” music, the factors (geography, era, genre, and so on) that shaped these values, and who formulated them and why. Only then can scholars and students understand what made these figures imposing players in music history, and why women are still widely excluded from being understood as such. The times of “neutrally good” music are long past, if they ever existed; teaching about a composer or a band simply “because they need to be known” is not sufficient for our students anymore. As instructors, we need to address this. Our students will question the giants for us if we do not do it with them. Warwick approaches the meanings of gender in music through four themes—networks, composition, performance, and reception—which provide the basis for the book’s four chapters. In chapter 1, she introduces networks through Indigenous studies and their emphasis on humanity as relationships and synergy, rather than individual effort. This approach challenges “genius” as the sole criterion for designating a composer JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGICAL RESEARCH 2023, VOL. 42, NO. 1, 48–50