Interdyscyplinary Master’s Seminar 3106-SEMMGR-INTER

The seminar is interdisciplinary and co-led by two researchers.

Under the supervision of Dr hab. Anna Gruszczyńska-Ziółkowska, UW Professor, the seminar explores topics within the broad field of the anthropology of music, under the motto ‘music does not exist without the human being, and the human being does not exist without it’. The topics discussed at the seminar sessions cover various historical periods of music, traditions and cultural contexts (from the Palaeolithic to the present day). Examples of topics:

1. Traditional concepts and notions relating to sound (e.g. naming and classifying phenomena, onomatopoeic toponymy).

2. Iconography of sound (e.g. music-themed painting, analysis of scenes depicting musical performance, the composition and sound of ensembles, as well as those depicting landscapes, social life, noise, silence, the sounds of nature, etc.).

3. Sound space from an anthropological perspective, including – the sound horizon and examples of crossing boundaries (e.g. the human audiogram and audiograms of other animals, the shamanic ‘flight’, ‘Orphic’ explorations, acoustic expansions, the phenomenon of the strangeness of the acoustic signal).

4. The organisation of sound space (including intentional limitations, e.g. sacred space, zones or periods of silence; self-imposed limitations – the physical and psychological role of headphones).

5. The latest developments in archaeomusicology (e.g. the use of measuring tools, reconstructions, mathematical modelling).

In addition to individual work with Master’s students and sessions involving all seminar participants, meetings with invited guests are planned, during which they will present selected topics from their research topics, e.g.:

1. Ceramic rattles in an archaeological context – the Limes and rites of passage (Katarzyna Tatoń, MA, PhD student at the University of Rzeszów);

2. Mayan musical iconography – a multi-faceted research methodology (Dr Monika Ciura);

3. Data on ancient musical performance practices obtained through the use of the latest research technologies: archaeological aerophones from the Polish region (Kacper Siejkowski, MA, PhD student at the Jagiellonian University);

4. Viking musical practice in the visions of feature film makers and source data – archaeological, historical and ethnographic (Anna Wrzodak)

5. Archaeomusicology of Costa Rica – the originality and uniqueness of whistles (María Gabriela Arroyo Wong, MA, PhD student at the University of Costa Rica – online meeting);

6. The music of New Spain in the 16th/17th centuries in the light of historical and iconographic sources (Dr Anna Jurek Nathan, a graduate of our Institute, currently a researcher at the State University of Mexico in Toluca – online meeting);

7. The aulos in musicological research (Dr Olga Sutkowska, a graduate of our Institute, participant in research projects at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and lecturer at German universities).

Under the supervision of Dr. hab. Tomasz Baranowski the following research areas are being explored:

1. aesthetics of music from the 19th century to the present;

2. the work of composers of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century;

3. musical culture of the 19th and 20th centuries;

4. monographs of musical ensembles or institutions;

5. pianism of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The seminar will also cover general scholarly methodology, with particular emphasis on the principles of constructing a scholarly text.