Music 347 - Topics in Music: 'Music Theory and Difference'

This course asks what it means to create, consume, and analyze music across lines of cultural difference. In what ways do a repertoire's features become associated with -- or bound to -- the people who create it? As we listen and analyze across cultural lines, what aspects might be translated or lost; what might be gained? What distinguishes modes of interaction such as influence, hybridity, and appropriation? How do systems of power and oppression impact our thinking on these questions? In this course we explore these and other questions through reading, musical analysis, formal and informal writing, engagement with guest speakers, and discussion of case studies, centering musicians that have been marginalized by the academic discipline of music theory.

Prereq: MUSIC-100 or MUSIC-131 or passing Music Theory Placement Test, and an additional 4 credits in classroom Music courses at the 200 level or above.