The Popular Arts in America: The History of Rock and Roll - Punk Rock

Catalog description

An examination of the roots, development, and significance of punk rock in our culture. This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. Punk rock was an important and historically significant genre in rock and roll music that initially developed in the United States and Great Britain in the late 1960s and has continued to the present. Through an examination of the now more than thirty-year history of punk rock in our culture and that of Great Britain, students gain an understanding of the role played by punk rock in shaping both our musical and cultural sensibilities and the historical and social movements that influenced and led to the development of punk rock as a musical genre and lifestyle. This course is composed of eight chronologically arranged units of study that examine the major developments in punk rock in an historical context. In addition to weekly text assignments, students are required to complete four assignments in the Popular Music Forum. The Popular Music Forum will examine important issues in popular music and culture concerning or related to the historical development of punk rock in both countries that require research, critical thinking, the formation of objective opinions, and discussion. The Popular Music Forum is conducted online as a series of asynchronous discussions on Forum topics. The class will be broken into groups of fifteen students for the purpose of discussion. Both the content of the course and the assignments in the Popular Music Forum are directed at helping students understand, reflect upon, and critically examine the music created in the genre and the social and cultural forces that influenced and were influenced by punk rock. The thrust of the course is sociological and cultural rather than musicological, and the intent of the course is to provide students with a comprehensive overview of the development of punk rock its importance in our social and cultural history. Each unit of study will be accompanied by key examples of recorded music. The course will include approximately 200 important recordings for required study.