#4: Let it Rock: The Rolling Stones, Writing and Creativity
Instructed by Dr. Anthony DeCurtis at University of Pennsylvania
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You can’t always get what you want… but if you try sometimes, well, you might find you get the course that you need.
For students at UPenn, the course they just might need is offered by Dr. Anthony DeCurtis — famed music critic, biographer-to-the-stars, and Rolling Stone contributor. The course examines the music of DeCurtis’ favorite band, the legendary Rolling Stones, through lenses of creativity and critical analysis.
To quote the Stones — let it rock!
#4: Let it Rock: The Rolling Stones, Writing and Creativity
School: UPenn
Course: Let it Rock: The Rolling Stones, Writing and Creativity
Instructor: Dr. Anthony DeCurtis
Course Description:
The Rolling Stones formed in London nearly sixty years ago, and the band is still actively touring and recording. This course will focus on the band’s songs, films, solo projects and lifestyles as a source of creative inspiration. The course will, in part, take its shape based on the interests of the students who enroll in it: while Stones obsessives — you know who you are — are, of course, welcome, if you are new to this music and these lives, curious about how these iconic musicians might inspire your own creative output, then your curiosity, adventurousness and willingness to take a deep dive into this work are all that is required. We will listen to and discuss Stones songs, watch movies and performances, explore their influence across the arts and culture (very much including style and fashion), and meet critics and artists who have engaged their work in meaningful ways. For those reasons, the course will be more impressionistic than strictly schematic — that is, we will follow various threads in the Stones’s work as they emerge in our discussions and as our mutual fascination guides us. The goal is for us to achieve an understanding of this work and these artists that is as visceral as it is intellectual. The class will do some analytic and critical writing. But students who are so inclined will be encouraged to pursue their own creative work — which is to say that, in consultation with the instructor, short stories, songs, poems, plays, paintings, photography or videos inspired by the Stones will be acceptable projects to complete the course’s requirements. You will be allowed a good deal of freedom in charting your own independent course, in other words, as appropriate to our subject and the gift their work has given to us all.
Ask the Instructor: Dr. Anthony DeCurtis
Why did you elect to offer this course at UPenn this year?
I’ve previously taught courses centered on Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and Lou Reed/Velvet Underground (I wrote a biography of Lou that came out in 2017). These courses grew out of a desire to combine my teaching in the writing program at Penn with the rock writing I’ve done over many years at Rolling Stone and elsewhere. I didn’t exactly want to teach a “rock history” course, so I decided to take advantage of the freedom the creative writing program at Penn offers, and find a way to use the music I love as a prod to my students’ creativity.
As I’m sure you know, the very idea of what “writing” is has expanded greatly in recent years, largely due to digital culture and social media. So while my students mostly, by their choice, write critical essays, they are free to write poems or short stories, make videos, or write songs themselves.
As for why the Rolling Stones, they’ve been in the news of late and have been active and on tour. They’re also my favorite band. I’ve written about and interviewed them many times, so I could bring my personal experiences to the course. Also, given their history of outrageousness, I thought it would be interesting to see what current students made of all that.
Is Let it Rock offered within the department in which you usually teach?
Though I live in New York, I’m a full-time senior lecturer in the creative writing program at Penn, and all my courses have been taught there.
What do you ultimately hope that your students take away from participating in Let it Rock?
I’d like my students to learn how to think deeply and creatively about the culture that surrounds them. I have a PhD in American literature, and I wrote my dissertation about contemporary fiction. It’s exciting to engage work where the critical consensus has not yet been fully formed.
My students are also exploring worlds the Stones have influenced, like fashion and film (their work with directors like Jean Luc Godard, Martin Scorsese and Nicolas Roeg, for example). So they’re able to form connections that might not have occurred to them otherwise.
If you could teach a course on any topic at all, what would it be?
I’m pretty fortunate at Penn. The creative writing program is quite adventurous, so I’m more or less able to teach whatever I want. So the short and honest answer to your question is that I’m teaching and have been teaching, exactly the courses I want “on any topic at all.”
