Music, Politics & Ident: Case Studies

Catalog description

In the minds of many scholars, music is a significant expressive form precisely because it is a tangible product of human activity through which individuals and groups tell themselves and others who they are and what they value. In addition to providing aesthetic pleasure, music is frequently the site and subject of social and political struggle, debate, and activism. In many cases, music is a practice through which definitions of identity and relations of power are articulated and contested, reproduced and reconfigured. In this course we will read an interdisciplinary array of recent texts in order to survey and consider the research questions, theoretical frameworks, and methodological approaches of ethnomusicologists, musicologists, and other musically-inclined scholars whose research documents and analyzes the artistic, social, political, and cultural significance of music created by African Americans, past and present. We will explore the various ways African American musicians and audiences use music and music-making and consider the cultural, social, and political impact of these creative processes. We will relate our discussions to issues of identity formation, representation, power, authenticity, gender, and sexuality. As we read and discuss the assigned texts, we will consider the authors’ methodological approaches, theoretical tools and frameworks, sources, archives, and modes of discourse. What are the assumptions that underpin the questions that the authors address? How do they present their ideas and how does their form of presentation (scholarly vs. informal voices, for example, or polemical/positioned vs. “objective” voices) affect our responses to their work? How effective are their experiments in research and writing? How do they handle the challenge of writing about musical sound and how effective are their approaches? A goal of the course is to…