Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Constructions of Subjectivity in Franz Schubert's Music


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   merge to Susan McClary.  MBisanz  talk 20:22, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Constructions of Subjectivity in Franz Schubert's Music
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Article is a point-by-point summary of an essay that does not appear to have any inherent notability. Unable to find reliable sources that give substanital coverage (the only source cited in the article is the essay itself), and it has only been cited 7 times according to Google Scholar. Sheep NotGoats  (Talk) 15:37, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Music-related deletion discussions.   -- • Gene93k (talk) 16:23, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been notified to WikiProject Classical music and WikiProject LGBT studies. - Voceditenore (talk) 19:15, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete This sort of thing is inappropriate for Wikipedia (see WP:NOT); we're not a respository of reviews of music criticism. Thus, I did not find it necessary to research notability issues. RayAYang (talk) 16:57, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Change to Keep following voceditenore's edits. I wasn't aware the essay was that famous; in this case, it seems Google Scholar was misleading. There's a considerable difference between an academic article with 7 citations and an article that gets discussed at length in multiple books, as well as mentions in the popular press. RayAYang (talk) 19:53, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 *  Keep  and re-write as a brief but viable stub with proper references to secondary sources. Or at the worst re-direct to Susan McClary. It's currently a badly written bit of original reasearch, but the essay itself is quite notable, apart from Google Scholar there are these three articles which include the New York Times. Quote from NYT (Anthony Tommasini, What's So Gay About American Music?, New York Times, October 24, 2004...
 * [...] a well-known musicologist, Susan McClary, winner of a MacArthur Foundation "genius" award, whose contentious 1991 article "Constructions of Subjectivity in Schubert's Music" became a manifesto for a number of queer theorists. Ms. McClary tried to identify homosexual qualities in the slow movement of Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony. Her notion that Schubert was inviting listeners to "forgo the security of a centered, stable tonality" and "experience - even enjoy - a flexible sense of self," has always struck me as a convoluted way to account for perfectly explicable disruptions of key.
 * But Ms. McClary's lead was followed by smart critics like K. Robert Schwarz, long a contributor to The New York Times, who died in 1999. Schwarz wrote impassioned liner notes for a shamelessly commercial though perfectly harmless 1995 recording, "Out Classics: Seductive Classics by the World's Greatest Gay Composers.[...]
 * This essay is also mentioned in over 35 books, several of which devote considerable space to it (Note the first one is the book that contains her essay - Queering the Pitch: The New Gay and Lesbian Musicology- so  that doesn't count) Voceditenore (talk) 18:57, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Change to Merge Banjiboi's link (below) isn't compelling in itself as this simply goes to the essay reprinted in Queering the Pitch where McClary discusses the controversy the paper originally generated. From the NYT articles on the subject from 1992 onwards, it did cause a kerfuffle involving several well-known critics, e.g.,, , , , ,. Having said that, I now have serious reservations about keeping this as a separate article, apart from the "articles about articles" issue. For one thing the title is wrong as it implies that the article about Schubert's music, not about a particular work/theory by McClary. It also implies that "constructions of subjectivity" in his music actually exist, when this is a moot point. Since it's a clearly notable essay, material about it and the references should be located in her article. I'm going to write a section about it in her article, and then perhaps people could consider redirecting this page there. I'll post back when I've finished. Voceditenore (talk) 06:20, 21 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep per Voceditenore's excellent argument. - Mgm|(talk) 19:50, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep, we do have articles on important articles (...er, sorry about that!), such as Disneyland with the Death Penalty, and given Voceditenore's arguments, this seems to be important. --Jashiin (talk) 19:58, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Withdraw as nom, if possible. The new sources presented here show my nomination was clearly misplaced. Can we speedy keep this or something? Sheep NotGoats   (Talk) 20:19, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok, for what it's worth, I'm withdrawing my withdrawal, since this is now too contended for a Speedy Keep to apply. Sheep NotGoats   (Talk) 18:58, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge to Susan McClary. The present article IMO is not encyclopedic. We don't need articles about articles. Articles about authors and their views are appropriate, hence this could be a worthwhile section on the Susan McClary page, crossreferenced as necessary. -- Klein zach  23:59, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Strong Delete we do not and should not have articles on individual academic articles unless the articles are truly famous. I doubt the article would have even been proposed except for the context. The author is notable, perhaps her theory is notable enough for an article, a particular article she wrote setting forth her theory is not. Other publications referring to it or citing it should be considered as about her work, not about this particular essay., As the Wikipedia  article under question itself concludes, "McClary's ideas on Schubert hhave generated considerable controversy," the operative words her are her ideas, and the place to discuss them is the article about her, and as a sentence or so in the discussion of Schubert. 35 references to an academic article is in any case trivial. Accepting WP articles like this is trying to say everything several times over. DGG (talk) 00:20, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I think this article may be the exception to a common understanding that academic papers don't usually become famous on their own. The article could stress it better but this apparently was a notable first in a few respects and did become famous in turn. -- Banj e  b oi   03:10, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Strong Delete per DGG and WP:NOT. This is patently unacceptable material for an encyclopedia. Eusebeus (talk) 00:38, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. Seems to have surpassed the GNG. I found this to be compelling. Article may need clean-up and certainly adding sourcing to show why we have they article would also make sense. -- Banj e  b oi   03:05, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Update I have written a section on this paper in Susan McClary. Despite my initial reaction to "keep", (see above for why I changed to "merge"), I would strongly suggest that this article be re-directed there where the subject can be developed within the context of her other work, preferably by editors who have actually read the original in its entirety and are familiar with the subject in general. Incidentally, the Susan McClary article is itself quite a dog's dinner and basically unreferenced apart from the new section on "Constructions of Subjectivity in Franz Schubert's Music". Voceditenore (talk) 12:50, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge to Susan McClary. Almost pure WP:OR as it stands, and it desperately needs cites. Nonetheless, it is a valuable discussion that only needs some cleanup. Notable enough. &mdash;  La Pianista  (T•C•S) 23:03, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete or Merge to Susan McClary. As well as being very silly, this is largely unnotable. Lots of people write essays expressing opinions about everything under the sun. Is this widely discussed? I doubt it. Paul B (talk) 01:18, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge to [Susan McClary. She, and her writing, are famous (or perhaps rather notorious?), so notability is not a problem here.  It's really better to discuss individual articles in the context of the author's overall work.  Opus33 (talk) 06:59, 24 November 2008 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.