The David Bowie Syllabus (or #DavidBowieSyllabus) is a crowdsourced syllabus which collects and organizes essential music, videos, books, essays, and other resources for students and teachers of David Bowie, a British singer, songwriter, musician, producer, actor, and visual artist who was a long-time resident of the United States of America.
#DavidBowieSyllabus was conceived by novelist Rashid Darden, who in the wake of David Bowie’s death on January 10, 2016, resolved to preserve his legacy by considering those educators like himself who were influenced by Bowie’s artistry over his lifetime. He believed that not only the music, but the lessons of David Bowie’s life could be useful as tools to facilitate discussion on social justice in addition to art, history, music, and other traditional subjects in K12 and post-secondary education.
This project is inspired by the #FergusonSyllabus, which was itself conceived by Professor Marcia Chatelain in the wake of the civil unrest in Ferguson, Missouri after the killing of Michael Brown in 2014. The central question of the #FergusonSyllabus was “How do we teach kids about Ferguson?” Professor Chatelain’s purpose and framework is honored through this project and it is hoped that #DavidBowieSyllabus is not just a fan project, but a true means of interdisciplinary reflection on the life and work of David Bowie.
This is a living document that will be updated by Mr. Darden, interns, and volunteers at regular intervals.
To contribute to #DavidBowieSyllabus, please share significant links, books, articles, journals, articles, and other tools useful to students and teachers in the following ways:
- Share the links/resources on social media with the tag #DavidBowieSyllabus
- Email the links/resources to davidbowiesyllabus@gmail.com
- Leave a comment at the bottom of this page with your contribution
All productive and polite suggestions are welcome and will be considered.
The Studio Albums, Live Albums, Soundtracks, and EPs
This is a chronological (by release date) listing of David Bowie studio albums, live albums, soundtracks, and EPs. Compilations are listed separately. The David Bowie Discography on Wikipedia is a comprehensive listing which is ordered differently.
- David Bowie (1967)
- Space Oddity (1969)
- The Man Who Sold the World (1970)
- Hunky Dory (1971)
- The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)
- Aladdin Sane (1973)
- Pin Ups (1973)
- Diamond Dogs (1974)
- David Live (1974)
- Young Americans (1975)
- Station to Station (1976)
- Low (1977)
- “Heroes” (1977)
- Stage (1978)
- Lodger (1979)
- Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980)
- 1966 [aka Don’t Be Fooled By the Name, et al] (1981)
- Christiane F. (1981)
- The Manish Boys/Davy Jones & the Lower 3rd (1982)
- Let’s Dance (1983)
- David Bowie in Bertolt Brecht’s Baal (1983)
- Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture (1983)
- Tonight (1984)
- Labyrinth (1986)
- Never Let Me Down (1987)
- Tin Machine (1989)
- Tin Machine II (1991)
- Tin Machine Live: Oy Vey, Baby (1992)
- Black Tie White Noise (1993)
- The Buddha of Suburbia (1993)
- Outside (1995)
- Earthling (1997)
- Earthling in the City (1997)
- ‘Hours…’ (1999)
- Heathen (2002)
- Reality (2003)
- Live Santa Monica ’72 (2008)
- Glass Spider Live (2008)
- VH1 Storytellers (2009)
- Space Oddity (40th Anniversary EP) (2009)
- A Reality Tour (2010)
- The Next Day (2013)
- The Next Day Extra (2013)
- ★ [Blackstar] (2016)
- Lazarus (2016)
- No Plan (2017)
Essential Compilations and Box Sets
This list is not comprehensive.
- Changesonebowie (1976)
- Changestwobowie (1981)
- Sound + Vision (1989)
- Early On (1964-1966) (1991)
- Bowie at the Beeb (2000)
- All Saints (2001)
- Best of Bowie (2002)
- Club Bowie (2003)
- The Platinum Collection (2005)
- iSelect (2008)
- Nothing Has Changed (2014)
- Five Years 1969-1973 (2015)
- Who Can I Be Now? (1974 to 1976) (2016)
- Bowie Legacy (2016)
- A New Career in a New Town (1977-1982) (2017)
Concert Films
- Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars: The Motion Picture (1983)
- Serious Moonlight [Including Ricochet] (1983)
- Love You till Tuesday (1984)
- Jazzin’ for Blue Jean (1984)
- Glass Spider (1988)
- VH1 Storytellers (2009)
- A Reality Tour (2004)
Music Video Compilations
- Bowie – The Video Collection (1993)
- Black Tie White Noise (1993)
- Best of Bowie (2002)
Books about David Bowie
(Or significantly about David Bowie)
- Alias David Bowie: A Biography (Peter & Leni Gillman, 1987)
- Bowie (Simon Critchley, 2014)
- Bowie & Hutch (John Hutchinson, 2014)
- Bowie: A Biography (Marc Spitz, 2009)
- Bowie: The Biography (Wendy Leigh, 2014)
- Bowie: The Pitt Report (Kenneth Pitt, 1985)
- The Bowie Companion (Elizabeth Thomson and David Gutman, 1996)
- Bowie In Berlin: A new career in a new town (Thomas Jerome Seabrook, 2008)
- Bowie on Bowie: Interviews and Encounters with David Bowie (Musicians in Their Own Words) (Sean Egan, 2015)
- The British Pop Dandy (Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series) (Stan Hawkins, 2009)
- The Complete David Bowie (Revised and Updated 2016 Edition) (Nicholas Pegg, 2016)
- David Bowie: A Chronology (Kevin Cann, 1983)
- David Bowie: A Life (Dylan Jones, 2017)
- David Bowie: An Illustrated Record (Roy Carr and Charles Murray, 1981)
- David Bowie: Any Day Now: The London Years 1947-1974 (Kevin Cann, 2011)
- David Bowie: Critical Perspectives (Routledge Studies in Popular Music) (Eoin Devereux, Aileen Dillane, Martin Power, 2015)
- David Bowie: Fame, Sound and Vision (Polity Celebrity Series) (Nick Stevenson, 2006)
- David Bowie: Living on the Brink (George Tremlett, 1996)
- David Bowie: The Complete Guide to His Music (David Buckley, 2004)
- David Bowie: The Man Who Fell to Earth (Paul Duncan, 2017)
- David Bowie: The Pitt Report (Kenneth Pitt, 1983)
- David Bowie: Starman (Paul Trynka, 2011)
- David Bowie in Darkness: A Study of 1. Outside and the Late Career (Nicholas P. Greco)
- David Bowie Is… (Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago: Exhibition Catalogues) (Victoria Broackes and Geoffrey Marsh, 2013)
- The David Bowie Story (George Tremlett, 1974)
- Duffy Bowie: Five Sessions (Kevin Cann, 2014)
- Enchanting David Bowie: Space/Time/Body/Memory (Toija Cinque, Christopher Moore, Sean Redmond, 2015)
- Experiencing David Bowie: A Listener’s Companion (Ian Chapman, 2015)
- Future Nostalgia: Performing David Bowie (Shelton Waldrep, 2015)
- Glam!: (David) Bowie, (Marc) Bolan and the Glitter Rock Revolution (Barney Hoskyns, 1998)
- Hallo Spaceboy: The Rebirth of David Bowie (Dave Thompson, 2014)
- Heroes: David Bowie and Berlin (Reverb) (Tobias Rüther, 2014)
- Life on Tour with Bowie: A Genius Remembered (Sean Mayes, 2016)
- Life on Tour with David Bowie: We Can Be Heroes (Sean Mayes, 2003)
- The Man Who Sold the World: David Bowie and the 1970s (Peter Doggett, 2012)
- Mick Rock: The Rise of David Bowie, 1972-1973 (Mick Rock, 2016)
- Philosophizing Rock Performance: Dylan, Hendrix, Bowie (Wade Hollingshaus, 2013)
- Rebel Rebel: All the Songs of David Bowie from ’64 to ’76 (Chris O’Leary, 2015)
- Stardust: The David Bowie Story (Henry Edwards and Tony Zanetta, 1986)
- Strange Fascination: David Bowie: The Definitive Story (David Buckley, 2001)
- Tony Visconti: The Autobiography: Bowie, Bolan and the Brooklyn Boy (Tony Visconti, 2007)
- The Words and Music of David Bowie (The Praeger Singer-Songwriter Collection) (James Perone, 2007)
- Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell: The Dangerous Glitter of David Bowie, Iggy Pop, and Lou Reed (Dave Thompson, 2009)
Chapters
- “Postcolonialism on the Make: The Music of John Mellancamp, David Bowie, and John Zorn” by Ellie M. Hisama from from Reading Pop: Approaches to Textual Analysis in Popular Music (Richard Middleton, 2000)
- “Who Can I Be Now? David Bowie and the Theatricalization of Rock” from Performing Glam Rock: Gender and Theatricality in Popular Music (Philip Auslander, 2006)
- “Stardust Memories: How David Bowie Killed the ’60s, Ushered in the ’70s, and, for One Brief Shining Moment, Made the Mullet Hip” from I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts (Mark Dery, 2012)
- “Digital Shimmer: Popular Music and the Intimate Nexus Between Fan and Star” by Toija Cinque from A Companion to Celebrity (P. David Marshall and Sean Redmond, 2015)
- “David Bowie and the Art of Performance” by Shelton Waldrep, in Global Glam and Popular Music: Style and Spectacle from the 1970s to the 2000s, (Henry Johnson and Ian Chapman, 2016)
Journal Articles
- “David Bowie’s Survival” by Carter Ratcliff. Artforum 21.5 (January 1983), pp. 39-45
- “Who is he now? The unearthly David Bowie” by Toija Cinque and Sean Redmond. Celebrity Studies, Vol. 4, Issue 3 (2013), pp. 377-379
- “Who am I now? Remembering the enchanted dogs of David Bowie” by Sean Redmond. Celebrity Studies, Vol. 4, Issue 3 (2013), pp. 380-383
- “Re-collecting David Bowie: The Next Day and late-career stardom” by Landon Palmer. Celebrity Studies, Vol. 4, Issue 3 (2013), pp. 384-386
- “A silent voice across the MEdiaverse: The Next Day as identities prosumed” by Martin James. Celebrity Studies, Vol. 4, Issue 3 (2013), pp. 387-389
- “Look back at that man: David Bowie in retrospect” by Will Brooker. Celebrity Studies, Vol. 4, Issue 3 (2013), pp. 390-392
- “Who is he now: David Bowie and the authentic self” by Bethany Usher and Stephanie Fremaux. Celebrity Studies, Vol. 4, Issue 3 (2013), pp. 393-396
- “The Return of the Thin White Repressed: Uses of Narcissism in The Stars (Are Out Tonight)” by Ian Dixon. Celebrity Studies, Vol. 4, Issue 3 (2013), pp. 397-400
- “David Bowie: Dancing with madness and proselytising the socio-political in art and life” by Toija Cinque. Celebrity Studies, Vol. 4, Issue 3, (2013), pp. 401-404
- “Plumbing the Surface of Sound and Vision: David Bowie, Andy Warhol, and the Art of Posing” by Judith A. Peraino. Qui Parle, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Fall/Winter 2012), pp. 151-184
Conferences
- Blackstar Rising & The Purple Reign: Celebrating the Legacies of David Bowie and Prince, January 25-28, 2017
- David Bowie Interart | text | media Conference, September 22-24, 2016
- Conference on The Stardom and Celebrity of David Bowie 1965—2015, July 17-18, 2015
Essays
Addiction and Recovery
- David Bowie Wishes He Never Did Drugs (McCarton Ackerman, 2013)
- David Bowie and Cocaine Psychosis (Addicaid, 2014)
- Trent Reznor Recalls How David Bowie Helped Him Get Sober (Trent Reznor, 2016)
Angela Bowie
- How our golden years turned to ashes (Angela Bowie, 2016)
Berlin Trilogy
- When David Bowie Invented the Future (Jeff Slate, 2017)
- How David Bowie, Brian Eno Revolutionized Rock on ‘Low’ (Will Hermes, 2017)
- The History of David Bowie’s Berlin Trilogy: ‘Low,’ ‘Heroes’ and ‘Lodger’ (Frank Mastropolo, 2016)
Business, Leadership, and Innovation
- Astronaut’s Video Taken Down After Copyright Expires (Renee Montagne and Steve Inskeep, 2014)
- David Bowie and Lessons in Leadership (David Langdown, 2016)
- Bowie: The Man Who Sold Royalties and Brought Music to Bonds (Alastair Marsh, 2016)
- BowieNet: how David Bowie’s ISP foresaw the future of the internet (Keith Stuart, 2016)
- David Bowie Also Left His Mark On Wall Street (Jim Zarroli, 2016)
- David Bowie, The Internet Visionary (Laura Sydell, 2016)
- What the media industry can learn from David Bowie (Geoff Tan, 2016)
- David Bowie’s Music Hits 1 Billion Streams on Spotify (Lars Brandle, 2017)
Criticisms, Reviews, and Critiques
- How ‘Ashes To Ashes’ Put The First Act Of David Bowie’s Career To Rest (Jason Heller, 2017)
- Why David Bowie Considered ‘Never Let Me Down’ LP a ‘Bitter Disappointment’ (Kory Grow, 2017)
David Bowie is… Victoria & Albert Museum
- Exhibition dedicated to rocker David Bowie will come to NYC (Associated Press, 2017)
- David Bowie exhibition breaks V&A record (BBC, 2016)
- Ch-ch-ch Changes of David Bowie (Roslyn Sulcas, 2013)
Early Career
- David Bowie: how a broken pint glass in a Blackheath pub changed the course of music history (Robert Mendick, 2016)
Middle Career
- How David Bowie’s ‘Scary Monsters’ Turned Avant-Rock Into Chart-Topping Pop (Douglas Wolk, 2016)
Fashion
- How David Bowie’s Fashion Transformations Changed the World (Jerry Portwood, 2016)
Grief
Identity/Persona
- David Bowie, Earth’s Perpetual Persona Machine (Scott Thill, 2010)
- Who Can I Be Now? How David Bowie Spent 1974 (Jem Aswad, 2014)
- Back then, and now – just who is David Bowie? (Toija Cinque and Sean Redmond, 2015)
- David Bowie, An Icon Who Wrote Anthems For The Alienated (Mandalit Del Barco, 2016)
Kanye West and David Bowie
- Kanye West and David Bowie: Music’s Most WTF Conspiracy Theories, Explained (Joyce Chen, 2017)
Labyrinth
- Labyrinth and the Dark Heart of Childhood (Alison Stine, The Atlantic, 2016)
Lazarus
- Lazarus: David Bowie musical receives mixed reviews on London transfer (BBC, 2016)
- Lazarus: David Bowie’s Final Act (Jonathan Heaf, 2016)
Masculinity and Gender
- On The Men Who Rattled Pop’s Gender Rules — And What It Means To Lose Them Now (NPR, 2016)
- Prince, Bowie, and finding gender (s.e. smith, 2016)
- How Prince and David Bowie defined what it means to be masculine (Chris Thomas, 2016)
- How David Bowie changed the face of modern masculinity (Chris Moss, 2016)
- David Bowie bent the gender rules: His “not sure if you’re a boy or a girl” cool helped rewrite fashion and masculinity codes (Mary Elizabeth Williams, 2016)
- Gender transgression: How Bowie blurred the lines (Lisa Perrott, 2016)
- Why David Bowie’s Androgyny Was a Rare, Precious Gift (Christina Cauterucci, 2016)
- The Glam Rock Rebellion (Scottrgs, 2013)
Medical Ethics
- A thank you letter to David Bowie from a palliative care doctor (Mark Taubert, 2016)
Music Criticism
- Bowie’s music – and why it resists Dead Great Composer status (David Patrick Stearns, 2016)
Mystery, Mythos, Legend, and Symbolism
- Not legendary, but mythical: David Bowie joins pop’s most exclusive club (David Bennum, 2016)
- The final mysteries of David Bowie’s Blackstar – Elvis, Crowley and ‘the villa of Ormen’ (Jude Rogers, 2016)
Prince and David Bowie
- How the loss of Bowie and Prince is an omen for how we treat new artists (James O’Brien, Tonedeaf, 2016)
- Purple pain: why the deaths of Prince and Bowie cut us so deep (Jill Starks, Brisbane Times, 2016)
- Prince, Bowie and Haggard: Icons? Legends? What’s the difference? (Lynn Stuart Parramore, Stuff.co.nz, 2016)
- Mourning Prince and David Bowie, who showed there’s no one right way to be a man (Alyssa Rosenberg, The Washington Post, 2016)
- Prince and David Bowie showed us another way to live (Nate Scott, FTW/USAToday, 2016)
- Prince & David Bowie’s Deaths Remind Me Of The One Thing Their Music Gave Us All (Danielle Campoamor, Romper.com, 2016)
- The quality that made Prince and David Bowie immortal (Dan Zak, The Washington Post, 2016)
- Why we mourn artists like Prince and David Bowie so intensely (Troy L. Smith, Cleveland.com, 2016)
- Weirdo like me: Prince and David Bowie helped me find my place in America (Sonny Lê, PRI.com, 2016)
- Prince and David Bowie Shared a Hong Kong Tailor Who Is Now Mourning Their Loss (Mark Rivette-Carnac, Time, 2016)
- Prince covered David Bowie’s “Heroes” at his final gig (Factmag.com, 2016)
Race, White Privilege, White Supremacy
- David Bowie: Straight Time (Kurt Loder, 1983)
- That Time David Bowie Called Out MTV For Racial Discrimination (Lilly Workneh, 2016)
- This is how David Bowie confronted MTV when it was still ignoring black artists (Elahe Izadi, 2016)
Rape Culture
- David Bowie assault case goes before a grand jury (Vicky Bowles, 1987)
- Bowie Won’t Face a Rape Indictment (W. Speers, 1987)
- Suit Against Bowie Dismissed (Los Angeles Times, 1990)
- I Lost My Virginity to David Bowie: Confessions of a ’70s Groupie (Lori Mattix, as told to Michael Kaplan, 2015)
- David Bowie was not a rapist, according to his “victim” (Zachary Volkert, 2016)
- Reconciling David Bowie’s genius with rape (Rebecca Hains, 2016)
- On the Sins of David Bowie (Dear Coquette, 2016)
- David Bowie, rock star groupies and the sexually adventurous ’70s: “Labeling us as victims in retrospect is not a very conscious thing to do” (Scott Timberg, 2016)
- Remembering Bowie: The Man, The Legend, The Sexual Abuser (Jody Allard and Margaret Corvid, 2016)
- David Bowie: Musical Genius, Gender-Bending Icon, Alleged Perpetrator of Sexual Violence (Britni, 2016)
- David Bowie: Time to Mourn or Call Out? (Aida Manduley, 2016)
- In The Wake Of David Bowie’s Death, Nothing Feels Right (July Westhale, 2016)
Sexuality
- How movies like “Labyrinth” can help you talk about intimate fantasies (Stella Harris, 2019)
- Evan Rachel Wood: ‘David Bowie saved my life’ (Music-News.com, 2016))
- In David Bowie coverage, the media forgot to mention a major aspect of the rockstar’s life (Bill Wyman, 2016)
Science, Science-Fiction, and Futurism
- David Bowie On The Ziggy Stardust Years: ‘We Were Creating The 21st Century In 1971’ (Terry Gross, 2002)
- It Is To Space That We Go With David Bowie (Marcelo Geliser, 2016)
- Flashback: David Bowie’s Failed Attempt to Adapt George Orwell’s ‘1984’ (Beca Grimm, 2017)
Songwriting and Lyricism
- The Resurrections of David Bowie (James Parker, The Atlantic, 2016)
Theology
- All My Favorite Theologians are Dying (Tripp Hudgins, 2016)
Tony Visconti
- Tony Visconti Talks Recording, Falling out and Reuniting With David Bowie (Dave Depper, Willamette Week, 2016)
Visual Art
- The Man Who Painted David Bowie (Justin Papp, Darien News, 2016)
David Bowie Interviews
Lectures
Tributes and Obituaries
- David Bowie obituary (Adam Sweeting for The Guardian, January 11, 2016)
- David Bowie, 1947-2016 (Nancy L. Stockdale, Écoute s’il te plaît, January 11, 2016)
- David Bowie – ‘the Beethoven of his time’ says Isle of Wight Festival boss John Giddings (January 11, 2016)
- White House salutes David Bowie [Video] (Josh Earnest, White House spokesman. Reuters Video, January 11, 2016)
- A Guitarist Remembers: David Bowie Just Wanted A Good Laugh (Ari Shapiro, January 11, 2016)
- Reflections of a Bowie Girl (Ann Powers, January 11, 2016)
- There Will Never Be Another David Bowie (Tim Sommer, Observer, January 11, 2016)
- Listen: Your Memories Of A David Bowie Song (January 16, 2016)
- Dancing In The Street: New Orleans Throws A Memorial Parade For David Bowie (Alison Fensterstock, January 19, 2016)
- 43 Hunky-Dory Tattoos That Pay Homage to David Bowie (Lucy Kenny, Pop Sugar UK, March 5, 2016)
Websites
- Official David Bowie Website – www.davidbowie.com
- Forever Stardust: David Bowie Across the Universe – www.foreverstardust.com
- Pushing Ahead of the Dame: David Bowie, Song by Song – bowiesongs.wordpress.com
- David Bowie @ Genius – https://genius.com/artists/David-bowie [For discussions about the meaning of Bowie song lyrics]
#DavidBowieSyllabus in Action
- UK course on David Bowie has been a big hit with students (April 28, 2017)
- Cool at School: Ridgetop Elementary pays tribute to David Bowie (May 19, 2016)
Acknowledgements
Dr. Toija Cinque – @ToijaCinque
Senior Lecturer in Media and Communications
School of Communication and Creative Arts
Faculty of Arts and Education, Deakin University
Professor Marcia Chatelain – @DrMChatelain
Associate Professor, Department of History
Georgetown College
Georgetown University
Professor Shelton Waldrep – @sheltonwaldrep
Professor, Department of English
College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences
University of Southern Maine
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