NTU Course
Overview

Exploring Taiwan: Musicking and Listening in Taiwan

Offered in 113-2

  • Serial Number

    33794

  • Course Number

    GenEdu5036

  • Course Identifier

    H02 50340

  • No Class

  • 3 Credits

  • A15 / Elective

    No Target Students / Asian Art Program / PROGRAM IN TAIWAN STUDIES

      A15

    • No Target Students

      • Elective

    • Asian Art Program

    • PROGRAM IN TAIWAN STUDIES

  • PEI-LING,HUANG
  • Wed 7, 8, 9

  • 普204

  • Type 2

  • 70 Student Quota

    NTU 66 + non-NTU 4

  • No Specialization Program

  • English
  • NTU COOL
  • Notes

    、 The course is conducted in English。
    No Target Students The course is conducted in English。。A15:Literature and Arts , Civil Awareness and Social Analysis

  • NTU Enrollment Status

    Enrolled
    0/66
    Other Depts
    0/0
    Remaining
    0
    Registered
    0
  • Course Description
    This course explores social themes in Taiwan’s recent history through the concept of “musicking.” We seek to discover the communal meanings and effects created through a variety of sonic activities by people living on this island in recent history and contemporary times. Through careful listening and participation, we aim to gain different perspectives and a more reflexive, embodied, and affective understanding of the social organizations and changes over the last 150 years that shape Taiwanese society today. We do not aim for full coverage nor definition of “Taiwanese music.” Rather, we will endeavor to understand how various themes--including community building, migrations and rights, settler-colonialism, colonial-modernity, politics and economy, ethnic identity, multi-culturalism and indigenous sovereignty, gender and sexualities, space and environments, and social activism--are voiced and enacted through diverse genres of music and dance, by the indigenous, Han, newly immigrated and visiting communities of people living in Taiwan.
  • Course Objective
    1) To develop basic familiarity with genres of music (and dance) practiced by various communities in Taiwan. 2) To reflect on your own positionality in relation to Taiwanese history and society through listening, sounding, movement, and performance. 3) To apply the concept of “musicking” for understanding the active role of musical performance in society, and develop critical thinking skills for examining a diverse range of musical genres in relation to community building, identity formation, political-economy, and social activism.
  • Course Requirement
  • Expected weekly study hours before and/or after class
  • Office Hour
    Wed12:00 - 14:00
    Please email the instructor beforehand if you wish to meet to talk!
  • Designated Reading
    Week 2 - Chen, Chun-bin. 2022. “Highway Nine Musical Stories: Musicking of Taiwan-ese Indigenous People at Home and in the National Concert Hall,” in Resound-ing Taiwan: Musical Reverberations Across a Vibrant Island, edited by Nancy Guy. London: Routledge, pp. 47-66. Week 3 - Excerpt from Lin, Yih-Ren et al. 2020. “Situating Indigenous Resilience: Cli-mate Change and Tayal’s “Millet Ark” Action in Taiwan,” Sustainability 12:24, pp.7-11 (Section 3.1 on lmuhuw and migration). - Excerpt from Wang, Ying-fen. 2016. “The transborder dissemination of nan-guan in the Hokkien Quadrangle before and after 1945,” Ethnomusicology Forum, 25:1, pp. 58-62. - Ruckus, Ralf. 2023. “At work treated like a robot, through metal feeling like a human,” New Bloom Magazine (Online). Week 4 - Excerpt from Tan, Shzr Ee. 2012. Beyond ‘Innocence’: Amis Aboriginal Song in Tai-wan as an Ecosystem. Surrey: Ashgate, pp. 45-61. - Excerpt from Yu, Jin Fu. 2015. “The Religious Implications and Theological Thinking of the Bunun ‘Song for Bumper Harvest of millet’ pasibutbut,” Yu-Shan Theological Journal 22, pp.49-64. Week 5 - Lam, Joseph. 2001. “Confucian Ceremonial Music,” in Provine et al. (eds), Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Vol. 7 East Asia, New York: Routledge, pp. 372-75. Week 6 - Chao, Hui-Hsuan. 2011. “Singing Under the Rising Sun: Music Education in Early Colonial Taiwan, 1895-1905.” Formosan Journal of Music Research 12, pp. 29-63. Week 7 – Jones, Andrew F. 2020. “Fugitive Sounds of the Taiwanese Musical Cinema,” in Circuit Listening: Chinese Popular Music in the Global 1960s, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 79-108. Week 8 - Lee, Ching-huei. 2022. “Voicing gender in pak-koán theater: social contexts and singing mechanisms,” in Resounding Taiwan: Musical Reverberations Across a Vibrant Island, edited by Nancy Guy. London: Routledge, pp. 124-44. Week 11 - Ho, Tung-hung. 2019. “Profiling a Postwar Trajectory of Taiwanese Popular Music: Nativism in Metamorphosis and Its Alternatives,” in Made in Taiwan: Studies in Popular Music, New York: Routledge, pp. 23-42. - Lee,Vito; translated by David Smith. 2012. “Ara Kimbo Sings the Indigenous Blues,” Taiwan Panorama, April 2012. Week 12 – Tsai, Eva. 2019. “Tacky and World-Class: Hsieh Jin-yen, Taiwan EDM, and the Reinvigoration of Tai ,” in Made in Taiwan: Studies in Popular Music, New York: Routledge, pp. 143-55. - Lin, Hao-li. 2019. “Muscular Vernaculars: Braggadocio, “Academic Rappers,” and Alternative Hip-Hop Masculinity in Taiwan,” in Made in Taiwan: Studies in Popular Music, New York: Routledge, pp. 157-67. Week 13 - Guy, Nancy. 2009. “Flowing Down Taiwan's Tamsui River: Towards an Ecomusicology of the Environmental Imagination,” Ethnomusicology 53/2, pp. 218-248. Week 14 - Hatfield, DJ W. 2020. “Good Dances Make Good Guests: Dance, Animation and Sovereign Assertion in ‘Amis Country, Taiwan.” Anthropologica 62/2, pp.337–52.
  • References
    Chou, Wan-yao. Translated by Carole Plackitt and Tim Casey. 2015. A new illustrated history of Taiwan. Taipei: SMC Publishing Inc. Guy, Nancy. 2005. Peking Opera and Politics in Taiwan. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. ——— (ed.) 2022. Resounding Taiwan: Musical Reverberations Across a Vibrant Island. London: Routledge. Hsieh, J., and Lakaw, S. 2019. “Identity, Memory and Legacy: Indigenous Taiwan.” Te Kaharoa, 12(3). Hsieh, J., and Simon, S.E. 2023. "Introduction." In Indigenous reconciliation in contemporary Taiwan: from stigma to hope. Edited by Scott E. Simon, Jolan Hsieh and Peter Kang. London ; New York, NY: Routledge. Hsiao, Hsin-Huang Michael, ed. 2023- Encyclopedia of Taiwan studies online. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. Lin, W.-Y. 2013. “The Relationship between Music and Taboos in the Society of the Tao (An Indigenous Ethnic Group of Taiwan).” Journal of Creative Communications, 8(1), 45-64. Mittler, Barbara. 1997. “New music in Taiwan: the awakening of a sleeping dragon,” in Dangerous tunes: the politics of Chinese music in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the People’s Republic of China since 1949. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, pp. 187-229. Provine, Robert C., Yosihiko Tokumaru and J. Lawrence Witzleben (eds). 2001. Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Vol. 7 East Asia. New York: Routledge. Small, Christopher. [1998] 2010. Musicking: the meanings of performing and listening, Middletown: Wesleyan University Press. Teoh, Yang-Ming, 2020. “Lingering across the Ocean, Rooted on the Island: Indigenous Music and the Notions of Mountain and Sea as Taiwanese Identifiers,”in Keith Howard and Catherine Ingram (eds), Presence Through Sound: Music and Place in East Asia: 87-101. London: Routledge. Tsai, Eva, Tung-Hung Ho, and Miaoju Jian (eds.) 2020. Made in Taiwan: Studies in Popular Music. New York: Routledge. Wang, Ying-Fen. 2001. “Music and Chinese Society: Contemporary Taiwan,” in Provine et al. (eds), Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Vol. 7 East Asia, New York: Routledge, pp. 423-429. ———. 2012.“Zhang Fuxing’s Musical Negotiation between Tradition and Modernity.” Special issue on “Colonial Modernity and East Asian Music,” guest edited by Hugh de Ferranti and Yamauchi Fumitaka. The World of Music (New Series), 1-2012: 15-46. Yang, Chien-chang. 2023. “Competing voices in colonial Taiwan: Art song as a historical problem,” in Alison Tokita and Joys H.Y. Cheung (eds), The Art Song in East Asia and Australia. New York; London: Routledge.
  • Grading
    15%

    Discussion participation

    1) Participation in the TA-led discussion section to discuss the weekly reading and extension questions; roles will be assigned to new groupings each week to facilitate engagement. This also counts as attendance. Students should contact TA before class for approving absences. Unexcused absences will result in deduction of discussion points. 2) You will gain 8/10 per week for basic participation, and extra points for demonstrating active engagement (eg. asking questions, cultivating sense of community with discussion group, volunteering to share discussed points with rest of class etc.). Points will be deducted if you participate passively or engage in inappropriate behavior (eg. harmful speech acts).

    25%

    Assignments

    Students should complete the designated readings each week before class. Some assignments are related to the readings to prepare for discussion, and some are graded reflection journals. Written submissions that are copy pasted from generative AI will receive major grade deductions based on the rate of AI generation detected by AI scanners.

    15%

    Mid-term report

    Students will form groups for the field trip and report on their follow-up findings in round table discussion. Students will individually write a report synthesizing fieldtrip observations, discussions, and follow-up research.

    15%

    End-term group project oral report

    Students will self-form groups to report on a designated instrument or instrumental ensemble found in Taiwan, to illustrate some sort of social action that it generates in Taiwan, and to update a Wikipedia entry related to the topic.

    20%

    End-term written report

    Students will write-up their final presentation in a shared file in English, with designated group and individual segments. Final written presentations must be free from spelling errors and follow the Chicago Manual of Style code for citation. Plagiarism and AI-giarism will not be tolerated in any form (see COOL page for definitions).

    10%

    Group reading reports

    Students will be randomly assigned groups to report on a designated reading between W6-14 (Evaluated with inputs from whole class).

    1. NTU has not set an upper limit on the percentage of A+ grades.
    2. NTU uses a letter grade system for assessment. The grade percentage ranges and the single-subject grade conversion table in the NATIONAL TAIWAN UNIVERSITY Regulations Governing Academic Grading are for reference only. Instructors may adjust the percentage ranges according to the grade definitions. For more information, see the Assessment for Learning Section。
  • Adjustment methods for students
    Adjustment MethodDescription
    A2

    以錄影輔助

    Assisted by video

    B6

    學生與授課老師協議改以其他形式呈現

    Mutual agreement to present in other ways between students and instructors

    D1

    由師生雙方議定

    Negotiated by both teachers and students

  • Make-up Class Information
  • Course Schedule
    2/19Week 1Week 1 Introduction: what is Musicking and Listening in Taiwan? We examine the title of this course and survey the kinds of musicking in the weeks ahead.
    2/26Week 2Week 2 What can musicking do? We unpack the theoretical concept of “musicking” and explore how it helps us understand what musicking can do in Taiwan. For case studies we will focus on Han people’s temple processions, and a staged concert of the Puyuma people’s mangayaw (Great Hunting Ritual) and Pinuyumayan songs performed at the National Concert Hall in Taipei.
    3/5Week 3Week 3 Island I: migrations What stories do different forms of musicking tell us about migrations on, to, and through this island? We listen to Tayal people’s lmuhuw singing, Han people’s nanguan ensemble performance, Indonesian people’s metal music festival, and more.
    3/12Week 4Week 4 Island II: environments and rituals How do people interact with their environment and the seasons through musicking and ritual? We will focus on various genres of singing around Taiwan, from sio-po-kua (相褒歌), Hakka mountain songs, Saisiyat pastaai, Hengchun folk songs, Malan Amis radiw, Bunun pasibutbut.
    3/19Week 5Week 5 Island III: spaces, speeds, and relationships We explore the spaces created for and through musicking, shaped by movements fast to slow. What kinds of social relationships are formed in these musicking spaces? Case studies: village squares, parks, temples, churches, restaurants.
    3/26Week 6Week 6 Historical processes I: colonial-modernity and state governance How does politics and governance influence musicking? We listen to new forms and ideas of music, such as Western harmonies and orchestras, introduced during the Japanese and Post-War KMT rule, and reflect on their lasting presence today.
    4/2Week 7Week 7 Historical processes II: socio-economic changes What new kinds of musicking emerge during times of rapid socio-economic change? We focus on the Post-WWII period in Taiwanese society, which involved rapid urbanization, industrialization, and resource extraction, and listen to what the songs of the people who contributed their labor to these developments have to say, with focus on hoklo popular songs and linban (forestry labor) songs.
    4/9Week 8Week 8 Fieldtrip I: orientation to Kimotsi/Twatutia/Dadaocheng We will revisit moments of musical history through a walk in one of the most vibrant centers of musicking in Taipei. First, a historical introduction and fieldtrip orientation. Students will form groups to observe and take notes during the fieldtrip, to present in the roundtable discussion.
    4/16Week 9Week 9 Fieldtrip II: a walk through Kimotsi/Twatutia/Dadaocheng The walk through Kimotsi/Twatutia will center around a visit to the Taipei Ling-An Association (台北靈安社), a 150-year old Beiguan (pak-koán) amateur association, to experience some of their instruments in action.
    4/23Week 10Week 10 Fieldtrip III: roundtable discussion Students will form groups to present their field trip observations in connection to insights from class and readings.
    4/30Week 11Week 11 Identities I: who am I? After long years of martial law rule and cultural suppression, people started to organize protests. How did musicking before and after the lifting of martial law in 1987 confront the issue of “who am I?” We focus on the musicians active in the indigenous rights and “new Taiwanese music” movements.
    5/7Week 12Week 12 Identities II: gender and sexualities What can musicking reveal about the gendered structures of society? How do musicking participants shape identities of gender and sexuality and form nurturing communities?
    5/14Week 13Week 13 Activisms I: dissenting sounds What kinds of social activism have been taken up through musicking, what issues do they address, and what future do they envision for Taiwan? We will focus on different forms of dissent and environmental activism through popular music. **Wikipedia workshop in 3rd hour**
    5/21Week 14Week 14 Activisms II: dancing community and refusal For many people, dance is intertwined with musicking. We focus on ways and forms of dancing community, stereotypes, and refusal, with particular attention on structures of colonial tourism and settler gaze.
    5/28Week 15Week 15 Musicking instruments in Taiwan: presentations 1-6 Students will form groups (of 4-5 people) to apply insights gained in class and report on a designated instrument or instrumental ensemble found in Taiwan (including jaw’s harp, Yamaha piano, Paiwan nose flute, “eight sounds,” yue-ching, saxophone, harmonica, gramophone, er-hu, guo-yue orchestra, gong, zither etc.), to illustrate some sort of social action that it generates in Taiwan, and to update a wikipedia entry related to your topic.
    6/4Week 16Week 16 Musicking instruments in Taiwan: presentations 7-12 Students will form groups (of 4-5 people) to apply insights gained in class and report on a designated instrument or instrumental ensemble found in Taiwan (including jaw’s harp, Yamaha piano, Paiwan nose flute, “eight sounds,” yue-ching, saxophone, harmonica, gramophone, er-hu, guo-yue orchestra, gong, zither etc.), to illustrate some sort of social action that it generates in Taiwan, and to update a wikipedia entry related to your topic.