MUSIC 2350 - Music of the African Diaspora

(crosslisted) ASRC 2350
(GB) (CA-AS)

Fall. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

C. Appert.

This course explores the history and significance of musical performance in the African Diaspora. What specific cultural practices survived the Middle Passage, and how were they transformed in the New World? Why did these practices develop into traditions as seemingly disparate as Cuban Santería’s sacred batá drumming and the secular blues music of the American South? In the 20th and 21st century, how have people (including Africans, people of African descent, and marginalized populations without direct historical links to Africa) mobilized certain musics of the African Diaspora as practices of resistance to imperialism, apartheid, and segregation? Tracing intersecting and multi-directional movements of people, music, and culture across the oceanic divide between Africa, Europe and the Americas—the “Atlantic Triangle”—we will examine the central role that music has played in the construction of social identities and movements, from the era of the transatlantic slave trade to the present day.