MUSC 286 Music and Politics of the United States-Mexico Border

This course examines the ways that the United States-Mexico border has been represented as a space of violence and creativity limits and possibility in music produced between 1900 and the present. Shuttling back and forth between the border as a geopolitical boundary and as a trope of emergent identity, the musical texts we will examine challenge dominant narratives of national belonging self and other gender and racial hierarchy and economic marginalization. Engaging in a historically situated analysis of cultural texts that offer alternative perspectives on the lived experiences of those who inhabit the dynamic contact zone between the United States and Mexico students will critically engage the concepts and issues that have shaped the master narrative of the border. In addition to writing a twelve-page research paper students will produce a multimedia digital project. Not open to frosh.