AMERICAN ETHNICITIES AND POPULAR SONG

MUSIC 405

Explores various topics in music research from the perspective of contemporary cultural theory and history. Develops skills in critical analysis of music and culture, drawing from literatures in postcolonial studies, critical race theory, studies of empire, colonialism, and capitalism.

MUSIC 102

Examines cultural influences on the development of jazz. Explores historical and ethnographic works by scholars in ethnomusicology, history, anthropology, and communication in order to understand cultural influences of traditional and contemporary genres of jazz. Major topics include syncretism, nationalism, modernity, ethnicity, gender, colonialism, and globalization of modern America. Emphasis on cross-cultural understanding and interdisciplinarity in jazz performance.

AFRICAN 409

Introduces the phenomenon of "musical blackness" as a US-based, transnational cultural form and practice. Explores (topics will vary) how US-based, racially specified black musical forms, together with global forms also identified as "black," were constituted as part of the legacies of European colonial encounter and US imperial expansion; the categories of "traditional" music and popular style took shape and have been experienced as something part and parcel of this historical process. Gives close consideration to genre, style, and performance practice, in order to understand the many ways in which musical sound and social/political ideas are inextricably linked.

MUSIC 319

Explores music of ethnic groups in the U.S., including that of marginalized minorities, in its cultural context. Topics may include the music of African American, Asian American, Native American and Jewish communities.

MUSIC 419

Explores a variety of genres within their social and historical contexts including folk songs and ballads, the Native American Pow Wow, New England psalmody, popular song repertories, musical theater and opera, concert music, blues and jazz.