The Globalization of 'Black" American Expressive Culture

The course examines the generation, development and global spread of a distinctively ‘Black’ American aesthetic in, most notably, popular music. We will examine the formation and development of African-American culture in social, political and historical context, with a focus on the ways in which popular music was a sphere in which black and other Americans produced the art forms that became both a ‘shared’ and sometimes unifying sphere of national culture, and arguably the United States’ most unique and powerful contribution to global culture in the 20th century.