239713 Music and Politics in the Americas: Power to the People (BS) (SoSe 2012)

The course examines multiple crossroads between music and politics in the Americas. We want to explore links between musical genres, political movements, and the political engagement of musicians, songwriters, and composers as well as the ways in which politics resort to music for political campaigns and propaganda. Our focus will be on various periods in the 20th and the 21st century and with a special interest in the history of protest songs. We will look at the songwriters such as Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan (USA), rock music in Chile and Argentina in the period of transition from dictatorship to democracy, political salsa in the 1970s/80s (Ruben Blades, Willie Colón), Chicana punk (Alice Bags 1980s), Transfronterizo Fandango (US-Mexican border), the black rock coalition and the cultural politics of race (1980s) and ethnicity and politics in HipHop. The seminar will start with an international symposium on music and politics. We will distribute tasks and projects in our preliminary meeting on April 17th (12 to 14 p.m.).