Courses

Over the centuries, artists in a wide variety of media have employed many approaches to the creative process, ranging from the philosophical to the mechanical to the virtual. This course unravels some of the mysteries going on inside software used for art and music. It looks at ways of breaking things apart and sampling and ways of putting things together and resynthesizing, and explores ideas for creation. This course does not teach software packages for creating art and music. The course complements ART 2701 and MUSIC 1421.

Full details for MUSIC 1465 - Computing in the Arts

Since hip hop first emerged in the South Bronx nearly half a century ago, it has grown into a global movement. Youth around the world not only consume hip hop; they also create their own, adapting hip hop music, texts, dance, and visual culture to local realities. This course traces the ongoing connections between hip hop's roots in the cultural expression of marginalized African American and Latinx youth in the postindustrial urban United States, its contemporary relationship to US popular culture, and its routes around the globe, where diverse practitioners mobilize its beats, rhymes, and visual culture to address experiences of oppression and displacement, celebrate life, and agitate for social justice.

Full details for MUSIC 2370 - Planet Rap: Where Hip Hop Came From and Where It's Going

This course takes a selection of hit "songs of the summer" from the past fifty years as entry points into pivotal moments in U.S. history. Popular music not only reflects social issues; it also shapes public perception and at can fuel social change, from contexts ranging from the civil rights movement, to US imperialist projects, to the HIV/AIDs crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, movements like BlackLivesMatter and MeToo, and struggles for trans rights.

Full details for MUSIC 2372 - Songs of the Summer: Social Histories of U.S. Popular Music

This course considers both music and digital games in light of their playability. It aims to provide students with critical frameworks for addressing the diverse roles played by music in digital games as well as the ways in which playing digital games can be considered a musical activity. Focusing on games across an array of genres from first-person shooters to rhythm-action titles, the course will introduce students to recent scholarship on digital games from multiple disciplinary angles. No formal musical training is necessary, but suitably qualified students may take the course as a 3000-level elective by signing up for MUSIC 3901 and completing additional research components involving the creation and/or analysis of specific soundtracks or performances.

Full details for MUSIC 2701 - Music and Digital Gameplay