Patti Smith's Horses: Seminar

Service Description

Join rock scholar Walter Everett for a discussion of Patti Smith's artistry, including a sneak peak at material from his forthcoming book, Sex and Gender in Rock/Pop Music. Patti Smith is among the most creative poet-musicians of the past half century. She and her rock 'n' roll band, who have taken the stage about a hundred times a year, present a wide range of ever-changing story-songs spanning a recording career that began in 1975 with the album, Horses. Her rich poetic imagery and improvisatory skills shine as they interact with musical elements, especially in her song “Land," which addresses that process of creating human desire through embodied orgasmic destruction that exists both inside and outside the identification of male and female forms. Through “Land,” the main subject of this course's seminar, Smith offers progressive, visionary perspectives on gender and sex as she negotiates the themes of command and surrender, seemingly opposed sexual motifs whose roles are imbued with a blurriness similar to Smith’s own genderqueer performance. The course will be conducted on Zoom. Enrollment is limited to twenty-five participants on a first-come first-served basis.

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