From the Blues to Beyoncé: Popular Music in the U.S.

This course seeks to view U.S. cultural and social history of the last century through the lens of popular music. We will investigate the history popular music from its roots in the early twentieth-century to the present. We will examine the social, cultural and political contexts that gave birth to various genres of popular music by exploring the music through the lenses of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, advances in technology, and developments in the music business. No musical background is required. There are conference sections for this course that meet every week.