- Music, Race, and Identity

Catalog description

This course explores how music has been utilized to construct identity in America from the nineteenth century to today. Within the broad themes of race, ethnicity, gender, and queerness, we look at how groups and individuals use music to represent themselves and others. The course covers an array of song, stage, and screen traditions and relies on primary sources, critical scholarship, and audio-visual materials to bring our subjects to life. Although our course makes no attempt at a comprehensive history of any one tradition, it nevertheless demonstrates through a series of historical snapshots how music has served as a powerful tool for representing ourselves and others, no matter how contradictory, incomplete, or intersectional those identities may be. The ability to read musical notation is not required.