Musical Youth Cultures

This sophomore seminar explores how and why young people form communities around popular music. We will discuss readings and documentary films about musical subcultures, media circulation, and how young people make music meaningful in their lives. The course requires critical engagement with a variety of popular music genres and cultures, as well as reflection on our own musical production and consumption practices. Major topics include punk, hip-hop, metal, rock, and club music; popular music and intersectional identity (including race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and disability); fan communities; activist musical collectives; music-sharing technologies; the politics of style; and ethnographic theory and method.