Popular Music Cultures and Countercultures
| Code | School | Level | Credits | Semesters |
| AMCS3045 | American and Canadian Studies | 3 | 20 | Spring UK |
- Code
- AMCS3045
- School
- American and Canadian Studies
- Level
- 3
- Credits
- 20
- Semesters
- Spring UK
Summary
This interdisciplinary module examines the role played by American popular music in countercultural movements. It focuses on the ways in which marginalised, subordinate or dissenting social groups have used popular music as a vehicle for self-definition and for re-negotiating their relationship to the social, economic and cultural mainstream. It explores how the mainstream has responded to music countercultures in ways that range from repression to co-optation. And it analyses how the music and the movements have been represented and reflected on in fiction, film, poetry, journalism and theory. A central concern of the module is to evaluate the effectiveness and potential of popular music as a socially-critical or oppositional force. The module is built around case studies of key issues and moments in American popular music history. One of the key issues is the debate over the ownership and use of African-American musical resources, from nineteenth-century minstrelsy to twenty-first century hip hop. Another is the function of commercial entertainment institutions in mediating between music subcultures, political countercultures, and the mainstream culture. Among the key moments examined are the folk revival and the 1930s Popular Front, rock 'n' roll and desegregation in the 1950s, rock music and the 1960s counterculture, postmodernism and identity politics in the music of the MTV age and the relationship between hip hop culture and neoliberalism in the early twenty-first century.
Target Students
Available to Final Year SH and JH American and Canadian Studies students, Liberal Arts students and History students. Available to exchange students hosted by the School of CLAS.
Classes
- One 1-hour lecture per week for 11 weeks
- One 2-hour seminar per week for 11 weeks
The School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies operates an attendance policy. The details of this policy can be found in the student handbook on Workspace and in module handbooks.
Assessment
- 30% Coursework 1: Essay: 1,500 word critical evaluation
- 50% Coursework 2: 2,500 word essay
- 20% Participation: Seminar engagement and participation
Assessed by end of spring semester
Educational Aims
This module aims to provide students with an understanding of the relationship between musical form, social history and ideology. It will introduce students to a range of debates about and theoretical perspectives on the politics of popular music. It will provide in-depth exploration of relevant case studies from the Nineteenth Century to the present, covering a variety of music genres and historical contexts. And it will utilise a wide range of materials and sources, encouraging students to take an interdisciplinary approach to the analysis and understanding of cultural forms and texts.Learning Outcomes
A) Knowledge and Understanding: of the political and ideological significance of American popular music; of debates about and perspectives on the relationship between popular music and social history; of key moments in the aesthetic, cultural and commercial development of American popular music; of the history of American popular music as an oppositional force.
B) Intellectual Skills: thinking critically and creatively about the subject materials and theoretical issues; reading a range of materials with insight and confidence; developing an interdisciplinary approach to American culture and history; interpreting and evaluating primary and secondary sources about the subject matter; engaging with key problems and debates relevant to this aspect of American cultural studies.
C) Professional Practical Skills: locating, assimilating and synthesising information from a range of sources; identifying, comparing and evaluating key ideas and arguments; presenting information with clarity and confidence; effective written and oral communication; problem solving in response to seminar tasks and coursework questions; time management and self organisation.
Conveners
- Dr Nicholas Heffernan