740-440 Sounding Off: Music and Politics

Permission of the coordinator

This subject examines music's place in constructions of power by the state, the group and the individual. Case studies illustrate how the power of music has been mobilised to support and propagandise the state, on the one hand, and to provide a powerful code of identity, resistance and subversion among minority and subcultural groups, on the other. Case studies will range from music censorship by the state (for example, by the Taliban in Afghanistan) to the use of music in times of war music during war, music and politics in contemporary Tibet; and music and the apartheid movement in South Africa. Students will have an opportunity to pursue their own interests in particular areas of the world and musical styles

Contribution to seminar discussions (10%); a 1500 word mid-semester review of a book or video (30%); and an independent research assignment resulting in a 2500 word case study due after the end of the semester (60%).

A book of readings will be available before the first class.