Music in Multicultural World

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

This listening-intensive course looks at music as a component of cultural identities and collisions through the dual lens of ethnomusicology (anthropology of music) and “world music” (a pop-cultural/journalistic/marketing view). The syntheses that arise from the interactions of the dominant Western culture with its “others” are politically charged as much as they may be musically potent and are increasingly dependent upon globalization and technology for their creation and dissemination. Case studies will examine the dynamics of different forms of cultural interaction over the past couple of centuries, from Cold War nationalism in the Bulgarian Radio Choir to the impact of the Chernobyl meltdown on the underground rock scene of the Belarusan intelligentsia, from the meteoric rise (and fall) of Anglo-Indian pop of the 1990s to the complex multi-ethnic mix that has driven flamenco across a millennium from Moorish Andalucía to the art-school scene of Barcelona of the 2000s. Other subjects include Javanese gamelan and its confluences with Western art music, South African township jive echoing the arc of apartheid, the alliance of dance forms with nationalism in 20th century South America, the colonial and diasporic sources of the Riverdance phenomenon, a Canadian First Nations songwriter's foundational role in the genre we call "Americana," and the multiple Francophone audiences of Cajun-American rocker Zachary Richard.