3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

Popular music(s)—while they often share certain practices of production and distribution—are made, performed, and enjoyed around the world in a wide variety of languages, genres, and contexts. They are also closely tied to a range of social practices, political projects, and economic concerns as varied as the contexts in which these styles are produced and consumed. In this course, we will examine the production, consumption, and circulation of popular musics in multiple national and transnational contexts. We will discuss ways in which a global perspective might complicate common Western understandings of popular music aesthetics, categorization, and participation. Finally, through a series of case studies, we will seek to understand both the breadth of practice in popular musics and how these musics and the values embedded in them may both support and disrupt global patterns of influence, exchange, and domination.