MUSI 251 - Deconstructing Pop: Theory about Popular Music

0.5 unit(s)

“Pop” offers upper-level students who are interested in including popular music in their senior theses and correlate projects an opportunity to dig into some of the fundamental texts that have set the debate. These texts derive from a number of different fields: music, sociology, cultural studies, and area studies. This 6-week course provides students with an opportunity to read through these difficult texts slowly and have the opportunity to discuss and get a deeper understanding of the scholarly debate, better preparing them to pursue their senior research projects.

The course starts with the conflicting theories of the Frankfurt and Birmingham schools and then moves into feminist critique, analysis of racialization in popular music, and criticism of global pop and world music. These areas deploy a wide variety of theories from around the social sciences and humanities. This intensive expands the conceptual tool kit available to students for analysis through primary source engagement, analysis, and application. Justin Patch.

Prerequisite(s): Declared major in a thesis required or thesis optional major; intention to write a thesis that includes analysis of popular music.

First six-week course.

One 2-hour period.

Not offered in 2023/24.

Course Format: INT