MUS 221 - Music History I: Unexpected Encounters in Early Modern Europe

Introducing students to a range of sacred and secular genres, this course will study the history of music in early modern Europe with a particular focus on ideas of encounter, exchange, and entanglement with people, sounds, ideas, and materials around the globe. What can music teach us about how people thought, felt, and acted in the past? When does music illuminate the past in ways other historical documents do not? How did encounter within and outside of Europe shape ideas about culture, mapping of the world, and racial and ethnic difference? History is an exercise in storytelling; you will work with primary and secondary sources in order to understand how music history has been constructed, and to craft your own stories that connect music making in the past to our present-day experiences as listeners, musicians, and writers.

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group I
Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Notes: Music 221 can be taken independently of Music 222.
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).