Areas of Study
Musicology
Musicology at Ohio State encompasses a wide-ranging curriculum. Studies in historical musicology tend to concentrate on the history of Western art music; they provide a solid grounding in musicological research, criticism and theory. Studies in ethnomusicology tend to concentrate on music outside of the Western art tradition; they emphasize a solid grounding in field research, theory and experimental methods, complemented by performance experience. A major academic initiative has recently permitted us to include a special focus on the emerging field of cognitive ethnomusicology.
Courses and seminars reflect the interests of an internationally recognized faculty, whose expertise covers the full range of Western music history and a broad spectrum of non-Western cultures. Specialized research interests include plainchant, the history of music theory, Dufay, French Baroque opera, Russian art music, Russian vernacular music, music in international diplomacy, contemporary African art music, the African diaspora, urban ethnomusicology, jazz, popular music and music and the brain. Regional expertise of the ethnomusicology faculty covers such geographical areas as Russia, Eastern and Central Europe, Africa, North America, China, Southeast Asia, Australia, Madagascar and the Antilles. Critical, cultural and methodological contexts include textual criticism, paleography, film theory, identity in music culture and the representation and analysis of musical sound. In the history of ideas, the faculty consider the interstices and dualities of religion and ritual, music and politics, modernism and postmodernism, popular and art cultures and colonialism and post-colonialism.
Graduate students at both the masters and doctoral level concentrate in either historical musicology or ethnomusicology, but gain a foundation in both. They define individual areas of specialization in close consultation with the faculty and are encouraged to take courses from other departments, such as anthropology, linguistics, folklore, theatre, dance, comparative studies, psychology, linguistics, neurosciences and music cognition. Numerous university centers and institutes are also available to students, among them the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, the Slavic and East European Studies Center, the Center for Folklore Studies, the Humanities Institute, the Lawrence and Lee Theatre Research Institute, the Melton Center for Jewish Studies and the Wexner Center for the Arts.
