American Protest Music

4.0 credits

This course focuses on protest music in America during the 20th and 21st centuries. We will examine how music has been used throughout American history to articulate the social and political concerns of Americans. As we examine genres such as folk music, the blues, punk, rock ’n roll, hip hop, and funk, we will focus on how artists within each genre musically and verbally expressed the existential realities facing American culture. We will also look closely at specific social movements and political events - such as the labor movement, the civil rights movement, the Vietnam war, women's liberation, LGBTQ activism, and the Black Lives Matter Movement, among others - to understand how the music in each era impacted, and was impacted by, the American sociocultural milieu.