The Singer-Songwriter: Intimacy, Parasociality, and the Confessional
TDM 196SS
Subject & Catalog Number
Course Information
Description
Over the past few decades, audiences have grown increasingly enamored with the figure of the singer-songwriter. Listeners today crave the confessional and the direct address, modes of intimacy through which artists sell themselves as much as their music. In this course, we will explore the biographies and oeuvres of popular musicians who divulge their private lives—or at least seem to—for our pleasure. In particular, we will consider how the relationships between artists and audiences are constructed in the media, from democratized social media platforms to exploitative tabloids to the controlled narratives of production and industry. Surveying musicians from Joni Mitchell and James Taylor to Taylor Swift and Chappell Roan, we will disentangle the contradictory knots tying together authenticity, persona, labor, and profit in the music industry. How does identity inform production and consumption of popular music, from the gendered expectation that women perform “confessional” music, to racialization of genre in popular music? We will also confront our own culpability as consumers, exploring themes of parasociality, intimacy, and the expectations society places on celebrities.
Course Notes
No prior knowledge or experience is required for this course. This course satisfies the “Critical" requirement for TDM concentrators and Secondary Field students.
Available for Harvard Cross Registration
