MUS 118
Hearing Race in America, 1890-1955 Spring 2022
Division I Difference, Power, and Equity
This is not the current course catalog

The rise of Rock ‘n’ Roll in the mid-1950s has typically been viewed as a temporary confluence in American culture, suggesting possibilities for musical and racial integration even as various forms of appropriation and exclusion were perpetuated. This course will explore the earlier multiple musical streams that merged at this moment. We will start by engaging with contemporary and historical perspectives on race, adopting a radically interdisciplinary approach. Our focus will then be on several of the most prominent vernacular and commercial forms of American music during this period: ragtime, blues, early jazz, rhythm and blues, Tin Pan Alley, country and western, bluegrass, Tex-Mex/Tejano conjunto, “Latin jazz,” and Cajun/zydeco. Prior to the 1950s, these musical styles were segregated, at least in terms of production and marketing. How did racial assumptions and histories shape the creation, dissemination, and reception of this music? Can we hear the multiple ways in which race played out in American music in the first half of the twentieth century?