This course investigates the ways popular music is imbricated with the our identities, social affiliations and attitudes towards others on the scale of millions of people—what we might call “mass culture.” We will explore how popular music produces emotion, a sense of intoxication, and erotic desire; how it can be linked with self-discipline, bodily exercise, state security, sovereign authority, patriotism, courage, punishment, and violence; and how music might be heard related to labor and work, consumerism and consumption, and capitalism more broadly. We will puzzle over the ways music can give coherence to a cultural group, accompany moral education and action, challenge or reinforce gender conventions, mobilize and disperse political resistance, or lead one into a trance of spiritual and religious ecstasy. While we will still attend to a variety of “purely” musical elements both large and small (chords, verses, choruses, singing styles, lyrics, etc.), our central focus will be on forming a more philosophical view of its functions within popular culture. Genres to be discussed include rock, pop, hip-hop, R&B, electronic dance music, performances of the national anthem, and experimental music.
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