This course will introduce students to Indigenous epistemologies of music in Australia. It will examine the roles in Indigenous societies of music and cognate media in both classical and post-classical contexts. It will specifically explore the relationships of music to social structures, spiritual beliefs, the ceremonial arts, and country among Indigenous communities of central Australia and Arnhem Land, and will examine issues relating to changing contexts in Aboriginal societies nationwide. Relationships between music, media, identity, and place will also be examined. Students will participate in an intensive course that will develop their intercultural understandings through cultural immersion and excursions to nearby national institutions. In keeping with Indigenous epistemologies, they will learn musical structures through the logic of ceremonial structures and traditional dance.

By the end of the course, you should be able to:

1. understand Indigenous epistemologies of music and cognate media in Australia from several theoretical perspectives
2. apply these theoretical perspectives to a number of specific musical and cross-arts cases
3. demonstrate a familiarity with Indigenous musical and ceremonial practices
4. demonstrate a developed awareness of the roles that music and media play in shaping Indigenous societies
5. demonstrate listening and intercultural awareness skills through the participatory study and discussion of selected musical and cross-arts cases
6. employ research, analysis, discussion, and writing skills through written assessment tasks

• Written project (3000–4000 words) (60%), [Learning Outcomes 1,2,3,4,5,6]
• Oral examination (40%), [Learning Outcomes 1,2,3.4,5,6]

A mixture of seminars and workshops equivalent to three hours per week, plus seven hours of independent study per week.

Nil

None

• Corn, A 2009 Reflections and Voices (Sydney, SUP).
• —— 2010 ‘Land, Song, Constitution’ Popular Music 29: 81–102.
• Corn, A & JN Gumbula 2006 ‘Rom and the Academy Repositioned’ in L Russell (ed.), Boundary Writing (Honolulu, UHP) pp. 170–97.
• —— 2007 ‘Budutthun Ratja Wiyinymirri’ Australian Aboriginal Studies 2007.2: 116–27.
• Patrick, S, M Holmes & A Box 2008 Ngurra-kurlu (Alice Springs, Desert Knowledge CRC).