Syllabus

History of Punk Rock | INART 125 | Penn State | Maymester 2022 | Web

Professor: Dr. Zack Furness. Please feel free to call me Zack, Professor, or Coach (because it’s funny)
Course Website: https://sites.psu.edu/punk
Canvas Website: https://psu.instructure.com/courses/2213253
Email: zmf100@psu.edu. Please allow up to 24 hrs for a reply. See my email policy below for additional info.
Zoom Office: https://psu.zoom.us/my/punkademic
Zoom Office Hours: By Appointment. Email me to schedule a meeting!

Course Description

INART 125 is an examination of the origins, development and continued significance of punk rock music and subcultures. Through an examination of punk’s now more than forty-year history, students will gain an understanding of 1) the place of punk music in the history of rock and roll, 2) the social movements and ideas that influenced the development of punk as a set of creative practices and artistic scenes, and 3) the shifting political relationships between punk and popular cultures within the Americas, the UK, and parts of Asia and the Middle East. The thrust of the course is sociological and cultural, rather than musicological, and the intent of the course is to provide students with an overview of the development of punk rock and its importance in our social and cultural histories. Each unit of study will be accompanied by key examples of recorded music and film documentaries.

WARNING!

Given that this is a course devoted to the study of music and subcultures that are notoriously confrontational, and at times controversial, it’s fair to say that you will be exposed to a host of ideas, images, sounds, and language that some people might find offensive or shocking. If that sounds enticing to you, then you’re in the right place! However, if for whatever reason (and there are certainly valid ones) the very thought of this causes you anxiety from the outset, then you may wish to re-consider whether this course is the right place for you. In any event, consider yourself duly warned.

Credit Information

• There are no prerequisites for enrollment and, like all Summer courses, it is open to all students across the Penn State system.
• This course fulfills 3 Arts (GA) credits in General Education and also fulfills Penn State diversity credits (US or IL).

Required Texts 

• Daniel Makagon, Underground: The Subterranean Culture of Punk House Shows (Microcosm Publishing, 2015). You can either purchase the electronic or print edition directly from the publisher via this link. You can also purchase the ebook through Amazon or anywhere else you purchase ebooks online.
• All other reading assignments will be distributed for free in PDF format or accessible via web publications.

Recommended Texts (Not Required)

• Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain, Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk – 20th Anniversary Ed. (Grove Press, 2016).
• George Hurchalla, Going Underground: American Punk 1979-1989, 2nd Ed. (PM Press, 2016).
• Brian Peterson, Burning Fight: The Nineties Hardcore Revolution in Ethics, Politics, Spirit, and Sound (Revelation Records, 2009).

Technologies, Websites & Subscriptions

• Course website: Our weekly schedule of assignments, as well as all important course documents, are posted on the course website. You are expected to check the website on a daily basis for updates and possible changes to our schedule. Students are also expected to familiarize themselves with the Canvas website for our course in order to know where assignments will be submitted and grades will be posted.
• Canvas: Students are also expected to access the Canvas website for this class, which is the place where assignments are submitted, grades are posted, and online discussions are hosted. Please update your profile on Canvas with a picture of yourself! After you login, just click on Account and then click on Profile and select the Edit Profile button. Please post a clear picture so that your classmates and I can see your face when you post in discussions (it will appear in the little circle next to your name). After that, please edit the biography section to tell us a little bit about yourself. 
• Devices: Students enrolled in this course must have a way to regularly access course content from a remote location, whether that’s through a computer lab on your campus or by using your own laptop or desktop computer. Broadly speaking, students are strongly discouraged from accessing the course website using only their smart phones (meaning your phone shouldn’t be your primary tool for viewing content on this website). iPads and other tablets should work just fine for this course but if you have trouble accessing this website or Canvas using your tablet, please discuss the issue with the IT Helpdesk on your campus (PSUGA students can click here).
• Web Browsers: Students are encouraged to access both Canvas and the course website using either Firefox or Chrome. Mac users may find that Safari is inconsistent with the way it handles some of Penn State’s websites.
• Spotify – Playlists for our classes will be posted on Spotify. If you don’t have a Spotify account already, you’ll need to create one (the free version is fine).

Important Notes About the Condensed Version of this Course

• Expectations: Cramming an entire 16-week course into a 4-week summer session (aka. ‘Maymester’) is kind of wild and definitely a lot of fun, but it’s not the easiest task. Condensed courses place unique demands on both the students and their professor, as they require concentrated amounts of time and energy from everyone involved. Since we have a limited time in which to cover a lot of material, it’s important for everyone to realize that there will be daily reading, listening, viewing, and writing assignments. Taking this course online does offer an important degree of flexibility – particularly for folks who are working over the summer – but the web format requires an additional level of attention to the ways that we communicate with each other online (there’s some additional info about this below, under ‘netiquitte’).
  • In general, please be prepared to 1) hit the ground running on the first day, 2) stay on top of your work each week, 3) communicate with your fellow classmates and your professor via discussion threads and Twitter, and 4) reach out to your professor whenever you have any questions or concerns.
• Daily Workload: Maymester courses that meet in person typically require between 12-15 hours of class time per week, as well as daily homework. You can expect roughly the same time commitment, or about 3 hours of total work per day (M-Th), which also includes time for listening and viewing assignments.

ASSIGNMENTS & GRADES

There are no quizzes or exams in this course. Punk is already an odd enough fit in an academic context (in ways that will likely be apparent to you later on), and having designated tests on the material would not only be super weird for your professor, who played in punk bands for 20 years, it’s also completely antithetical to the spirit of punk itself. Consequently, the bulk of your assignments are structured around writing, which is both a practice and a form of self-expression that has a rich history in punk subculture.

• Due dates for all assignments, as well as detailed assignment guidelines, are posted here on Canvas and on the Schedule that’s linked through the main menu above.

Canvas Discussion Posts (60%)

Discussion posts are shorter assignments – some longer than others – that will be written in response to prompts your prof will post at least two days in advance of their due dates. The assignment topics are varied and also include a number of listening-based tasks that are meant to develop your listening skills and to help you find creative ways to discuss and analyze the music you’ll be hearing. There will be eleven of these assignments and your lowest score will be dropped.

• In addition to our assigned discussion posts, there’s also an open discussion that can be used for anything punk music related – bands, songs, recommendations, random questions, whatever you like.
• Students can also start their own discussions if there’s something more specific they want to chat about.

Discussion posts are designed for three purposes. First, they are meant to give everyone a place to share their ideas and reactions, and to hear what others have to say. Second, they give us some specific things to discuss as a group since we’re not meeting face-to-face. Finally, they give us the opportunity to practice both thinking and writing about music (and the arts more broadly).

To that extent, you should think of our discussion posts as a hybrid of conversational and analytical writing – something akin to an intelligent blog post, or an insightful feature about a band that one might find in the Pittsburgh City Paper. Broadly speaking, this means you should view discussions posts as places where you strive to make clear points, explain and support your positions, and try to avoid simplistic evaluative claims about whether you “liked” or “didn’t like” something. To be sure, learning about what you like, dislike, love, and loathe is important! But while it’s definitely useful to get a sense of your interests and tastes, constantly thinking and writing about art (whether it’s music, painting, photography, etc.) through the lens of like/dislike is extremely limiting for a variety of reasons. Probably the biggest reason is that it discourages us from exploring so many more interesting issues and questions about the songs we are hearing and the bands, scenes, styles, and subcultures we are learning about. If we’re only focused on whether we “like” something, it’s hard to consider how, for example, the instruments work together in particularly good (or bad) song…or how punk music becomes ‘political’ in certain countries regardless of bands’ lyrics…or to think about why punk vocalists often use their voices more like amplified instruments…and, of course, it’s really difficult to think critically about what we “like” in the first place, or why we like it. Long story short: one distinct goal of an arts course is to learn how to appreciate, understand, analyze, and critique something irrespective of whether we personally love or hate it.

Beyond addressing my prompts, I (your professor) strongly encourage everyone to view our Canvas discussions as your space to communicate with each other, on your own terms. That means I will not dominate the conversations that emerge, and it also means you shouldn’t feel compelled to comment on your classmates’ posts and initiate further conversations (beyond your initial post) if you don’t want to. You’re all adults and you can make your own decisions about how active or inactive you choose to be in online conversations, though I heartily encourage everyone to chat. Ask your classmates questions! Give them compliments! Respectfully disagree! Recommend some new music you heard!

Critical Responses (30%)

Response papers are relatively short essays (roughly 1-2 pages, single-spaced) in which you will respond to a prompt from your professor, such as a specific question or set of issues outlined in the assignment description. The main purpose of these assignments is to critically engage with ideas presented in course readings and films.

• You will write three of these papers throughout the course and the prompts are accessible via Canvas.
• Whereas discussion posts are due the following day after course material is assigned, you will have several days to complete these longer assignments – typically from a Thursday to the following Monday.

Mixtape Project (10%)

Students will curate, create, design, and analyze a playlist “mixtape” based on a theme from the course. Click here for detailed guidelines.

Scene Report (Not for Summer 2022) 

During typical years when there’s not a pandemic, I ask every student in INART 125 to attend a punk show at some point during the semester and write a follow-up paper about the experience. While bands are once again playing live, the condensed format of a Maymester course makes it extremely for me to justify this assignment in such a short time frame. But if you’re curious about what the assignment looks like, feel free to click here for more info.

Grading Scale

Assignments will be graded using points that translate to this standard scale:

A = 93-100% Excellent (excellence consistently achieved)
A- = 92.9-90% Outstanding (nearly always top quality)
B+ = 89.9-87% Very Good (extremely solid performance)
B = 86.9-83% Good (better than average performance)
B- = 82.9-80% Respectable (demonstrates solid potential)
C+ = 79.9-77% OK (average performance)
C = 76.9-73% Acceptable
C- = 72.9-70% Less than acceptable (shows some ability)
D = 69.9-60% Passing (counts for credit)
F = below 60% Failure (does not meet minimum standards)

STUDENT SERVICES & CAMPUS RESOURCES

Note: Some of this information is either specific to students at Penn State Greater Allegheny or not applicable during the Maymester Summer session

Student Need

• Link to the Student Needs Survey: PSUGA Needs Survey Spring 2022

Any student who is having difficulty affording groceries or accessing sufficient food to eat every day, who lacks a safe and stable place to live, is experiencing a financial emergency, or has any other concern that could affect their personal well-being and/or academic success is urged to complete the Student Needs form above. Even if you are doing well, we would love to hear from you.

Center for Academic and Career Excellence (ACE)

ACE provides academic and non-academic services to students who meet federal eligibility requirements and agree to participate in the program. This includes first generation college students, those from low-income families, and students with disabilities. The ACE website is located here and their office is located on the Lower Level of the Kelly Library. To contact ACE, call 412-675-9491, or send an email to PSUGA-ACE@psu.edu.

The Learning Center

Clear and coherent writing is an important factor in your success in this class. Students in need of tutoring and/or extra help with study skills are encouraged to make a Zoom appointment with someone in the John H. Gruskin Learning Center, located in the Kelly Library, Lower Level. To schedule an appointment, call (412) 675-9088. One-on-one appointments are encouraged but not required.

• Click here to download info about the Learning Center.
• Click here to download info about registering for the Math 10 and Engl 5 supplemental courses.

Disability Accommodation

Penn State welcomes students with disabilities into the University’s educational programs. Every Penn State campus has an office for students with disabilities. Student Disability Resources (SDR) website provides contact information for every Penn State campus (http://equity.psu.edu/sdr/disability-coordinator). For further information, please visit Student Disability Resources website (http://equity.psu.edu/sdr/).  The contact person at Penn State Greater Allegheny is Siobhan Brooks (Office in Lower Level of J. Clarence Kelly Library, 412-675-9454, snbrooks@psu.edu).

Counseling & Psychological Services

Many students at Penn State face personal challenges or have psychological needs that may interfere with their academic progress, social development, or emotional wellbeing. The university offers a variety of confidential services to help you through difficult times, including individual and group counseling, crisis intervention, consultations, online chats, and mental health screenings. These services are provided by staff who welcome all students and embrace a philosophy respectful of clients’ cultural and religious backgrounds, and sensitive to differences in race, ability, gender identity and sexual orientation.

• Penn State Crisis Line (24 hours/7 days/week): 877-229-6400
• Crisis Text Line (24 hours/7 days/week): Text LIONS to 741741
• Black Mental Health Services in Pittsburgh.

Educational Equity, Reporting Bias, and Title IX

• If you are in need of immediate assistance due to a sexual assault, call the Pittsburgh Action Against Rape Sexual Assault Hotline: (866) 363-7273.

Other Services and Resources

Links to additional services and resources for students are accessible through the Links page in the website menu above.

COURSE POLICIES (OUR CONTRACT)

NOTE: These policies are very important, please read them

Email

All students are required to make use of their Penn State email accounts. While I recognize that you all have your preferred modes of digital communication (social media, messaging apps, Gmail, etc.), you will still be expected to check your school email account on a daily basis, and I will use that address to discuss all class related business throughout the semester. If your email requires a long reply I will ask you to see me. If you have a question that is easily answered on the course website or in course materials, I will direct you there.

• Here are some useful tips for communicating with your professor via email.

Assignments and Extensions

Due to both the fast-paced nature of this condensed course, as well the flexibility that’s already built into the assignments and grading scale, there are some important things to keep in mind about assignments, deadlines and extensions:

• Written assignments that are submitted late will receive an automatic grade deduction (10%) for each day they are overdue. However, assignments submitted more than two days late will not be accepted for credit, unless you have made special arrangements with the professor.
• If, for whatever reason, you are unable to complete the first full week of assignments or cannot access the course via Canvas, your professor strongly advises you to drop the course in lieu of earning a low or failing grade in the course.

Respectful College Classroom Behavior

One of the ways that college differs dramatically from high school or the workplace is that you are all here by your own choice. As tuition-paying adults who have made the conscious decision to take a course that either sparks your curiosity or is required for your major (or both), I presume that you want to be here and that you are eager to learn. As your professor, you can presume that I also want to be here and that I am eager to teach you everything I can about the subject matter. In order to get the most out of that experience, it’s important for everyone to keep the following things in mind:

Treat people with care and respect. In both our face-to-face meetings and online discussions, it’s important to treat others with care and respect, regardless of whether you share the same beliefs or hold the same opinions. Because while debates or disagreements can be a part of any healthy class discussion, they should never be occasions for rude or insulting behaviors. In short, harassment of students and/or instructors will not be tolerated. In the event that it happens – and fortunately it almost never does – the person responsible will be held accountable, as such behavior violates Penn State’s student code of conduct. Furthermore, any such incidents that include the use of racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic or other abusive, discriminatory language will be grounds disciplinary action and/or expulsion from the course.

Practice good netiquette online. If you don’t know what the term netiquette means, here is a useful primer. In a nutshell, it means that you need to pay attention to the manner in which you engage with people online, particularly if you’re not in the habit of doing so. Whereas face-to-face communication provides us with myriad opportunities to read other people’s body language and nonverbal cues in real time, online communication does not afford us such luxuries. This is compounded by the fact that all of us have spent years inadvertently reading tons of nasty online comments that have partly conditioned us to be more antagonistic and more defensive with our online behaviors.

• As a writer, you need to recognize how your statements, responses, and arguments can potentially be interpreted by people…and you should make an effort to write accordingly. Do your best to explain yourself, clarify your ideas, make succinct points, and support your positions.
• As a reader, you should be similarly generous with other people’s writing – give people the benefit of the doubt, don’t assume the worst, and try not to read too much emotion into peoples’ statements simply because they agree or disagree with you.

Don’t be intentionally offensive. I fully recognize that in a class about punk rock, you’re going to hear a lot of profanities in song lyrics and documentaries,…and you will likely stumble across certain themes you might find offensive or, perhaps, even shocking. However, you shouldn’t interpret this to mean that all rules go out the window when it comes to conversations with your peers. You should keep things respectful, civil and (relatively) clean. Just because the MC5 opens up a song with the line “Kick out the jams, motherfuckers!” doesn’t mean that you should be referring to me or your classmates as motherfuckers in our online discussions, lol. Ok? Good.

Tech Issues

Problems related to computers, printers, electronic devices, software and/or email are your responsibilities to address; they are not legitimate excuses for late work or incomplete assignments. Here are some easy ways to avoid problems with hardware and software can and do arise:

• As a responsible student, you should always anticipate potential issues and plan accordingly. First and foremost, you should always keep backup copies of your papers and regularly backup your computer and electronic devices. External hard drives are cheap and don’t require an Internet connection or third party support. Online storage services are also great options and Penn State students have a vast amount of free online storage space via Microsoft Office 365.
• Another easy way to ensure the safety of your written assignments is to write them using Google Docs or with Word that’s integrated with Microsoft Office online (ask IT for help if you don’t know how to set this up). Documents composed in these ways are saved in real time and can be accessed from any device with an internet connection.
• Avoid doing work on your smartphone. Beyond the obvious visual benefits of working on a computer or tablet, some smartphones (and, occasionally, some tablets) can limit the functionality and/or features of certain applications or course management systems you are required to utilize as a Penn State student – for example, comment attachments on Canvas are sometimes not visible on iPhones. Such problems can be avoided by simply working on a computer, or your iPad, or using a computer located in a campus computer lab. If you don’t have much experience operating a regular computer, it’s especially important to learn how while you are in college since you will undoubtedly be required to use one regularly in your post-graduate career.
• If you primarily work on an iPad, we strongly advise you to invest in a Bluetooth keypad and a stand, or to find a case that has them built in. You can find any of these items cheap on Amazon (like this), and your professor may have a couple of extra compact Bluetooth keyboards that he can lend out for the semester if you need one (just ask).
• Take your devices to the IT Helpdesk on campus if you need assistance with anything, or get in touch with them directly via email or phone.

Using Zoom

Having normal conversations via Zoom can be as easy, productive, and enjoyable as doing it face-to-face. Here are some useful guidelines to help facilitate good communication in your remote courses and meetings:

• Make sure you are logged into Zoom with your Penn State account and use the Zoom app. Visit https://zoom.psu.edu/ if you’re having any problems or reach out to someone in IT.
• Broadly speaking, it’s preferable to keep your camera turned on for class meetings but it is not required.
• Update your Zoom profile with a selfie so that people can at least put a face to a name if/when your camera is turned off.
• Keep your audio muted when you are not speaking.
• Keep the chat window open to see messages.
• Utilize gallery view instead of speaker view if you want to see all of your classmates (or meeting participants) on the screen.
• Be mindful that there can sometimes be slight lag times during synchronous meetings, so try to avoid interrupting people in order to keep conversations flowing smoothly.
• When you wish to speak you can utilize the Raise Hand feature so that your professor and/or your classmates can easily see it.
• It’s generally wise to wear pants when you’re on Zoom, as one does during any college course IRL. But you do you.
• Dogs and cats who enter the chat are always welcomed, and also fun to look at.

Anyone with questions about using Zoom can check out Penn State’s rather comprehensive website here: https://zoom.psu.edu.

Academic Integrity and Plagiarism

Academic integrity is the pursuit of scholarly activity in an open, honest and responsible manner. Academic integrity is a basic guiding principle for all academic activity at The Pennsylvania State University, and all members of the University community are expected to act in accordance with this principle. Consistent with this expectation, the University’s Code of Conduct states that all students should act with personal integrity, respect other students’ dignity, rights and property, and help create and maintain an environment in which all can succeed through the fruits of their efforts. Academic integrity includes a commitment by all members of the University community not to engage in or tolerate acts of falsification, misrepresentation or deception. Such acts of dishonesty violate the fundamental ethical principles of the University community and compromise the worth of work completed by others.

A bit of clarity here about plagiarism is worthwhile given that it’s one of the most common violations of academic integrity. Simply put, plagiarism consists of using someone else’s ideas as your own in formal writing or speeches. If you use someone else’s ideas, you are expected to cite them. If you use someone else’s exact words, even if it is just part of a sentence, then you must put quotation marks around the phrase or sentence and properly cite the author. In light of Penn State’s stated regulations and your professor’s desire to administer plagiarism policies fairly – regardless of the individual responsible for the offense or their intentions – the standing policy is this: Any intentional incident of plagiarism, as well as any other academic integrity violation, will be submitted to the university.

Penn State’s official policies on Academic Integrity can be found online in the University Faculty Senate Policy 49-20 and in Academic Integrity, Undergraduate Bulletin 2019-2020.

Grading Policy

Grades shall be assigned to individual students on the basis of the instructor’s judgment of the student’s scholastic achievement. Grades are final and I grade exams and assignments based on your performance, not your intentions. Effort will be recognized in your participation grade for the course. I am eager to help you do well on exams and assignments before they are due. Please visit me during office hours to ask questions when you are working on an assignment or reviewing material. Here are the circumstances under which I would change a grade: (a) if I have made an error, or (b) if I have failed to hold you to the same standard as everyone else. In the event that you feel you received an undeserved grade, you should make your case in writing to your instructor within two weeks of receiving the grade. Finally, there are very few circumstances in which the professor will award a grade of “incomplete” for the course. If you feel like such circumstances apply, please discuss it with me before the end of the semester.

Non-Discrimination Statement

As a professor at Pennsylvania State University, I value equality of opportunity, human dignity, and diversity. In addition to the Penn States’s official nondiscrimination policy, and within the bounds of the course, I also do not discriminate on the basis of one’s personal opinions or political affiliations. In the simplest terms possible, this means that you do not have to agree with me in order to do well in this course. So long as you demonstrate an understanding of, and informed engagement with, the course material, you are under no obligation to agree with your professor, your classmates, or anything we read (you don’t even have to agree with yourself all the time). If there is something I can do to make the class more hospitable, please let me know. Be assured that I will treat students with respect, and I will promote a safe and conducive environment for learning. I expect all students to do the same. This means that, in accordance with college policies, I will not tolerate discrimination or harassment in my classes. If you have questions about the school’s policies, please consult the Student Code of Conduct online at http://studentaffairs.psu.edu/conduct/codeofconduct/.

Academic Calendar

For important dates pertaining to adding/dropping courses, withdrawal, etc. please consult the appropriate Penn State Academic Calendar.

Course Schedule

All weekly reading and writing assignments, as well as a variety of supplementary materials, are accessible through the menu heading at the top of this website, labeled Schedule. Your professor is likely to make small changes and updates to the schedule throughout the semester and he will notify you of such changes via some combination of Canvas announcements, emails, and posts on the homepage of the course website.

No Reproduction or Distribution of Course Materials

Students are encouraged to take notes and utilize the course materials that your professors provide to the class, i.e. lecture notes, slide presentations, etc. These materials are for you to use but they may not be distributed online, sold, or in any way monetized for personal gain by students or third parties (for instance, by for-profit note-taking services) without your professor’s expressed, written prior consent.

Photos, audio recordings, and video recordings of class proceedings are explicitly prohibited without the professor’s expressed, written prior consent. Under no circumstances may they be posted online.

Compliance

By staying enrolled in this class, you acknowledge that you understand and agree to abide by my policies, as well as Penn State’s official regulations (i.e. the accepted codes of conduct and academic integrity). Failure to follow the letter and the spirit of these reasonable guidelines can result in a reduction of your final grade, failure of the course, and/or other penalties set by the university.