Course Description

Course List

MS 9201   Special Topic: Cultural Labour and Popular Music

Course Description
Popular music making in the recording industry is a form of “cultural labour.” But what does this mean? Beginning with basic issues in labour and authorship, this course will investigate the social form and political economy of creative cultural work, how the relationships of creative workers--particularly but not only recording artists--to their labour and their intellectual property are shaped by history, law, collective bargaining, and custom, and how creative workers are represented in popular culture. Students with interests in cultural labour outside the recording industries are welcome and will be supported in learning and writing about creative work and workers in other cultural industries/fields.

Core texts will likely include Mark Banks, The Politics of Cultural Work, David Hesmondhalgh and Sarah Baker, Creative Labour: Media Work in Three Cultural Industries, and Richard Sennett, The Culture of the New Capitalism. Additional readings will A) focus on cases in the music and cultural industries and B) aid in the development of theoretical, historical, and methodological approaches.

0.5 courseCross-listed with PMC 9752



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