MUS 150 - The Cultural Study of Music

Music carries a tremendous range of meanings and functions, serving as both a symbol and generator of other forces in social life and history. Taking a critical approach to the study of music as a cultural phenomenon, this course will examine how diverse modes of attention to musical and other sounds contributes to larger struggles over sameness and difference, belonging and exclusion, and the status of music as a privileged category of social experience. We will focus on developing a critical vocabulary and particular mode of listening in order to explore and directly engage with these struggles.

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group I
Instructional Method: Lecture-conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Cross-listing(s): CRES 150
Group Distribution Learning Outcome(s):

Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.);
Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts;
Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).