Honors Seminar: American Music Cultures

Catalog description

This honors seminar introduces students to the foundational texts of cultural studies, popular culture studies, musicology and ethnography, and builds toward an understanding of how we use music to create and maintain social identities. Students complete research projects on a particular musical genre and subculture. Focus is on cultural analysis within social and historical contexts (drawing on the fields of literary criticism, history, sociology and music), which provides students with an opportunity to analyze and synthesize complex material encompassing multiple disciplines. Students are equipped with skills essential to the production of an Honors thesis, based on original research and analysis. A technical understanding of music and music theory is not a prerequisite for this course.