Music, Politics, and Protest in the United States

Harvard FAS

In this course, we’ll explore the intersection of music and social movements in the United States in the 20th and 21st centuries. How have musicians, critics, and audiences positioned music as “political” (and what does that mean)? What does a protest sound like, and what can that tell us about particular modes of resistance tied to race, class, gender, and sexuality? Can music be an effective agent of change? Drawing on a wide variety of sources–texts, archives, recordings, performances,…