Music in Spain and Latin America: A Global History

Undergraduate

This discussion-based seminar explores the historical, cultural, and political significance of music across the Spanish world, understood as an interconnected network linking the Iberian Peninsula, Latin America, the Philippines, and diasporic communities beyond. Adopting a broad historical perspective from the medieval period to the present, the course examines how music functioned as a site of negotiation, power, resistance, devotion, and identity formation within contexts of empire, colonialism, and nation-building. Considering both art and popular traditions, students engage multilingual song traditions in Arabic, Hebrew, and Romance languages; musical encounters among Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities in medieval Iberia; the circulation of music across the Atlantic and Pacific worlds; Indigenous and Afro-diasporic traditions; and modern and contemporary case studies around sound recording technologies, Latin jazz, flamenco, Rosalía, and Bad Bunny. Combining guided discussion, short framing lectures, listening analysis, and work with Yale collections, the seminar culminates in a collaborative digital project on Christmas music across the Spanish-speaking world. No prior musical training is required. HU MW 1:05pm-2:20pm