Courses

This course examines the history of American popular culture through music and radio, beginning in the 1830s with minstrelsy, the first distinctively "American" popular culture, and ending in the 1960s with Motown.  The course acquaints students with key concepts that aim to "read" cultural production and to explore what's unique about culture primarily experienced through the ears.  It examines debates over culture's qualifiers, from popular to mass, high to low.