Music 319, American Ethnicities and Popular Song will debut in Summer Session 2017 (June 19 – August 13), meeting Tuesdays & Thursdays, 8:55 – 11:25 a.m. The course fulfills the ethnic studies required to graduate.
This course examines the construction of race and ethnic identity in American popular song from the end of the Civil War to the present. It proceeds through a series of case studies in which individual songs provide a focus for the study of topics such as blackface minstrelsy, U.S. imperialism and musical exoticism, indigenous musics and the stereotypical sounds of Indians in American song and film, protest songs and the Civil Rights Movement, and the work of black musicians as cultural ambassadors within the context of the U.S. Government’s Cold War diplomacy.
Along the way, we will use what we learn from our study of these historical examples to consider how race figures in more recent writing about singers as different from one another as Beyoncé, Daryl Hall, Toby Keith, and Katy Perry. This will be taught as a blended course: students will access most course materials (readings, videos, self-evaluation exercises, etc.) online. We will use class meetings principally for one-on-one and small-group activities designed to help students develop and articulate their personal responses to the course content.
More information: David Crook, 5525 Humanities Building, dcrook@wisc.edu