May be repeated for credit as topics change. Topic for Spring 2024: Religion and Black Popular Music. Examines the interplay between colonialism, politics, religion, and popular music in shaping contemporary society. Through an in-depth exploration of the intersections between religion, music, colonialism, and politics, students gain a comprehensive understanding of the underlying structures that shape Black religion and Black popular music. They are encouraged to engage in nuanced discussions, challenging traditional interpretations, and critically analyzing the implications of power in these realms. This course fosters a deeper appreciation of the complexities of race and its impact on music, religion, and politics in our society, while empowering students to actively attend to the most pressing political, cultural, religious, and ecological concerns texturing the 21st century.

[ 4 cr.]

Offered: Either sem.

May be repeated for credit as topics change. Topic for Fall 2019: Religion and Hip Hop Culture. Considers an often overlooked element in the study of hip hop culture, religion. Specifically, the course offers students the opportunity to examine the variety of ways that religion finds expression in the dynamic cultural medium of hip hop.

[ 4 cr.]

Offered: Either sem.

This course introduces music across history, genre, and cultures, examining music's relationship to politics, race, religion, and identity. We'll approach music as a human activity enmeshed in social, political, economic, philosophical, religious, ecological, and individual contexts. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Aesthetic Exploration.

[ 2 cr.]

Offered: Either sem.

This course will involve in-depth reading and discussion of key areas of scholarship: music and politics, music and gender, music and religion, music and identity, and other useful paradigms. This course will broaden and deepen the intellectual horizons of graduate students in ethnomusicology and other interested graduate students. 3 cr.

[ 3 cr.]

Offered: Either sem.

This graduate seminar is required for graduate students in Ethnomusicology. This course will involve in-depth reading and discussion of key areas of scholarship: music and politics, music and gender, music and religion, music and identity, and other useful paradigms. This course will broaden and deepen the intellectual horizons of graduate students in ethnomusicology and other interested graduate students. Ethnomusicology graduate students will often take this graduate seminar in their third semester, but it could also be taken earlier. [ 4 cr.]

[ 4 cr.]

Offered: Either sem.

The 20th century presented the most accelerated period of social evolution in human history: two World Wars were fought; technology developed at a dazzling pace; psychological exploration and scientific discovery assailed traditional conceptions of religion and the nature of reality; the relation of the individual to society fluctuated as new social and political models originated. Our main focus will be the literature and film within this time frame, but parallel developments in art and music will also be discussed. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Social Inquiry I.

[ 4 cr.]

Offered: Either sem.

This course places the Christian gospel into dialogue with a variety of expressions of North American popular culture (film, television, art, music, entertainment, sports, etc.) in an effort to understand the complex relationship between the two. The course takes up at with this dialogue against the wider background of the study of religion and popular culture and by exploring the nature of self and transcendence, morality and the spiritual quest as those are constructed and configured within popular culture. The course asks to what extent contemporary expressions of Christian worship, preaching, Ministry, evangelism, and spirituality might better engage popular culture and to what extent these expressions already reflected the values, patterns, and practices of popular culture. (Clusters 1 and 2)

[ 3 cr.]

Offered: Either sem.