Music, Sound, Oppression, Rebellion, Liberation

Catalog description

Music and sound play a formidable role in rebellions and moments of liberation and, often unexpectedly, in the oppression of individual and collective freedoms. This course investigates the multiple roles music and sound have played in political, economic, and creative oppression and struggle throughout history, and in the present. Responding in real time to the political landscape of 2020, the faculty poses basic questions: What does it mean to say that music is political? What is it about music that makes it such a powerful tool of both political oppression and various forms of resistance to that oppression? What do music and sound teach us about the political struggles of the past? Contrarily, what do those political struggles teach us about the music that remains so central to political struggles in the present? This course is part of the NYU Big Ideas Series.