Racial Identity and American Popular Music

3 units

This course investigates the history of racial identity and American popular music from the mid-18th century to the present day. What can popular music -- a vehicle of entertainment and commercialism, culture and disposability -- tell us about how Americans have experienced and constructed race? How did Blackness and whiteness sonically rub shoulders, even during the heights of segregation? How did Frank Sinatra journey from being a son of Italian immigrants to being an icon of white, American masculinity? Why did Miley Cyrus' twerking cause an uproar? Participants will be trained in listening closely to musical artifacts, and they will be given opportunities to contextualize their own listening history. Our analysis will incorporate methods from the fields of musicology, history, and cultural studies. Student assignments will include reading, listening, writing, and discussion. This course counts toward the American Culture Studies major for day students, and it fulfills the Humanities or Arts distribution requirement for the AMCS MA program. It also fulfills the Writing Intensive requirement for both the Master of Liberal Arts and the Master of Arts in American Culture Studies programs.