Caribbean Music and Cultural Expressions

Catalog description

This seminar explores the diverse musical traditions of the Caribbean through critical, historical, and ethnographic approaches. Focusing on the intersection of identity and musical practice, the course examines how colonialism, migration, diaspora, and technology have shaped Afro-Caribbean sounds across the archipelago. Students will engage with key ethnomusicology texts, including Michael Veal’s Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae (2007) and Jessica Swanston Baker’s Island Time: Speed and the Archipelago from St. Kitts and Nevis (2024). By the end of this course, students will develop the theoretical tools to analyze music as a site of cultural memory, resistance, and world-making.