Music in Times of Crisis

Undergraduate / Graduate

The course explores the role of music during periods of crisis in global contexts. We will study how communities and societies use music and sound to express, make sense of, and even generate regimes of fear, torture, and loss. At a time when the human and more-than-human spheres coalesce, new technologies redefine human experience, and political and natural catastrophes shape lived reality, sound becomes a powerful way of practicing resilience. The course engages interdisciplinary methods to understand issues of musical activism, music therapy, and music as a powerful means to come to terms with conflict, war, and personal trauma. Be it the Second World War where music served to further Nazi propaganda, anthropogenic sound that results in stress, habitat alteration for land and marine animals, dealing with the AIDS pandemic in the 1980s, the "music-before-mosque" riots in South Asia where processions near religious spaces fueled communal violence, or stories in indigenous cultures that music could mitigate natural calamity, music is a rich site of understanding how communities deal with moments of crisis. Disciplines such as psychoanalysis, cultural studies, sound studies, media studies, and environmental humanities will be explored with a focus on close analysis of music in global contexts. Assignments feature creative projects (podcasts, annotated playlists, video essays, creative compositions, etc.) and academic papers. No prior musical background required.