Please, Please Degree!

[oldbeatlechick]

.......by Phil Coppell. Published Mon 02 Mar 2009 07:00, Last updated: 2 Mar 2009

The Beatles were once dismissed as a passing phase but they are now to become the subject of serious academic study with a university degree in "Fab Four Studies".

Liverpool Hope University is to offer the one year MA in "The Beatles, Popular Music and Society", with the first students enrolling in September 2009.


http://www.clickliverpool.com/news/national-news/123112-please,-please-degree.html

I may apply to do this when I move to Liverpool in a couple of years!! :wink2:

[Mrs.Mustard]

That sounds really up my alley...
1) I want to go to University
2) I want to go to University in England (especially Liverpool)
3) Obviosly anything including the Beatles is wickedly interesting!
*A DREAM COME TRUE!*

[Serena]

Sounds fun, but I have no idea why you would want to spend all that money for a useless degree when you can easily educate yourself in the subject for a much better bargain. I guess if you have some extra money to through around...

[beatlebangs1964]

I'd love to take the class at best, view the curriculum at worst.

No doubt the posters here would pass those courses with flying colors!

[lennonluvr9]

Ohhhh I would love that, although it's true, what would you do with a degree in Beatles? But still, if I had the money I'd totally do that.

[J van E]

Well, if they teach nonsense like this...

Their output covered huge range from the black and white film 'A Hard Day's Night' to Strawberry Fields Forever which was accompanied by arguably the first pop video.

...I'm not interested. They can't even get their publicity blurb right!

[The Duke]

Well, if they teach nonsense like this...



...I'm not interested. They can't even get their publicity blurb right!

Just so know what you mean, what part of that do you consider to be nonesense?

[J van E]

That it is the first pop video. This is very arguably indeed! ;) Let's assume The Beatles were indeed the first to make a pop video: not only did they make a few video's in the studio before SFF (which you might call nothing more than regular tv-performances, but they clearly WERE pop video's!), but the video's for Paperback writer and Rain were filmed on location, just as and (as we all know) long before Strawberry Fields Forever.

[oldbeatlechick]

The university’s head of popular music, Dr Mike Brocken stressed the unique course was anything but "Mickey Mouse", with serious academic study the order of the day.

The one-year, full-time course will also cover popular music in general and its effect on society since the 1960s.


The link below is from the Liverpool Echo and gives more information about the course:

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2009/03/03/liverpool-hope-university-launches-beatles-masters-degree-100252-23047805/

[Dr. Dreamer]

what would you do with a degree in Beatles?

You'd get a job like I did at the Hard Rock Vault and when they closed it teach kids about the Beatles, appraise people's collections and...well just check out my website... :teeth1:

Guess if I take the class I can be teacher's pet with my experience from the trenches...:laugh5:

[Mrs.Mustard]

I can't stress enough about how much I would love to take this. I want to learn about sixties culture..and obviosly the beatles.

For anyone interested in Journalism or even Reporting for music mags, I'm sure this would be useful..are the Beatles not the most influential?

[oldbeatlechick]

Having grown up in the 60's I would find it very interesting to study that decade and also the affect that music of The Beatles and other bands has had on society in general since then!

[Mrs.Mustard]

I've been reading into the University, and it sounds quite nice. I have to wait 2 years though!

[oldbeatlechick]

I've been reading into the University, and it sounds quite nice. I have to wait 2 years though!

Me too Mrs M because we won't be moving up there till then!

[Mrs.Mustard]

Me too Mrs M because we won't be moving up there till then!

They have better still offer it! :angry1:
That would be very neat if we did the course at the same time though..god knows I'll be a little out of sorts in england, having never been before.:wink2:

[oldbeatlechick]

They have better still offer it! :angry1:
That would be very neat if we did the course at the same time though..god knows I'll be a little out of sorts in england, having never been before.:wink2:

Yeah I was thinking that it would be fun!

[PaulisMine]

This is for an MA.
Probably just as useless as any other MA so why not study something I enjoy? Not like my undergrad degree matters either!

[Missus_Becky_Harrison]

I am totally going to move to liverpool!!! :teeth1:

there's no stopping me now

man, that'd be so cool. "oh yeah i have a beatles degree" hehe

totally...

:heart1:OUT! bye:music2:

REPORTER - "George, what do you call that hairstyle?"
GEORGE - "Harold" :laugh5:

[mari]

what would you do with a degree in Beatles?

Be GROOVY.

I have to wait 2 years though!

And it's an MA so more like five years.


I'll have a BA in English in a few months (well that's the plan), will I qualifyyyy...?? I would so do it.

[The Duke]

That it is the first pop video. This is very arguably indeed! ;) Let's assume The Beatles were indeed the first to make a pop video: WERE pop video's!),the video's for Paperback writer and Rain were filmed on location, just as and (as we all know) long before Strawberry Fields Forever.
But at least Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody isn't being wrongly touted as the 'first pop video' as it usually is!
I do agree that the Beatles most likely pioneered the video clip format with those Intertel promos of Day tripper, We Can Work it Out, etc, but I think the feeling is that Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane were a different kind of thing altogether, for example the Beatles didn't 'perform' the songs in these videos. Granted there were moments in Rain were they didn't perform either, but largely they did, and the whole 1980s and 90s pop video thing was that they were not just performance clips but 'art' videos and I think Penny lane and Strawberry Fields could justifiably be said to be the true start of that.
But then of course some could argue Ticket to Ride in the movie Help! is an even earlier example.
And so on, back to Al Johnson in 1927!

[lennonluvr9]

To quote George "In a way we invented MTV"

[PaulisMine]

A little more info on the coursework:
****

A unique opportunity to study in the city of Liverpool, home of The Beatles and with access to leading Popular Music academics and Beatles specialists, this MA is the only one of its kind in the UK and the world.

This MA will examine the significance of the music of the Beatles in the construction of identities, audiences, ethnicities and industries, and localities; by doing so it will suggest ways to understand popular music as a social practice, focusing attention on issues such as the role of music in the construction of regional identities, concepts of authenticity, aesthetics, meaning, value, performance, and the use of popular music as a discursive evocation of place. Furthermore, in a consideration of popular music as a text, popular music semiotics will also be employed.

This MA will be of interest to those working in the fields of popular music studies, cultural studies, social anthropology, politics, gender studies, and musicology, among others. Such a course is an essential addition to the discipline of Popular Music Studies.




Study Details/Module Information
Currently four taught modules are offered on this programme.

Texts and Contexts: Understanding Popular Music
This will offer the student an understanding of how Popular Music Studies has expanded and developed to deal with the changing nature of popular music over the past 50 years. This module will also provide students with contextually related research methods.

Topics in History: Liverpool
This module will introduce and discuss musical production and consumption within the post WWII era and will discuss the roles of locality, economics, space and place, and other issues specifically relating to Merseyside.

Musicology and the Beatles
In this module students will take a popular music semiotics approach and will textually analyse a variety of Beatles material.

Historical and Critical Approaches
Students will be invited to study a more ethnographic approach to the Beatles, the various cultural discourses surrounding their music, and the local tourist industry established in Liverpool to capitalise on the group.

The Dissertation module will be introduced to students towards the end of the Topics in History module with a request for student abstracts, the allocation of supervisors, and the agreement of research areas.

The Postgraduate Certificate will be awarded on the successful completion of 60 credits. This will consist of two taught modules.
The Postgraduate Diploma will be awarded on the successful completion of 120 credits. This will mean the completion of all modules apart from the Dissertation.


http://www.hope.ac.uk/postgraduate-2009/the-beatles-popular-music-and-society-ma.html

[oldbeatlechick]

Thanks PiM, I have printed this out from the website!

[Lucy]

sounds good to me!

[Mrs.Mustard]

I literally CAN'T WAIT!

[PaulisMine]

I think this is going to be unreachable for US folks unless you have a stash o' cash somewhere. Tuition runs about $10,000 US plus living expenses.
Good luck to anyone trying for this! :)

[oldbeatlechick]

I did see it was going to be about £3,500!

[erinluv182]

Wow. I'd like to get my masters someday, and well, this would just be great! And you can tell I majored in history, because the course that looks the most mouth-watering to me at this point is "Topics in History: Liverpool". And it's the post WWII era! I just drooled a little bit on my keyboard.

The fact that you could live in Liverpool is the icing on the cake. It sounds like a great opportunity. I haven't had a chance to look it over thoroughly yet, and I understand the skepticism of some that it'd be hard to get a job with this MA, but I guess it depends on how they do things in the process of getting the degree. There could be a possibility for work in a museum of some sort when you have your masters...if they feel you are a good enough reasearcher based on your education. Maybe I'm being too naive, but I would wager that the university is trying to do something to make this an MA that is marketable to employers.