American Music Concentration (AMMU)
American Music Concentration
The American Music concentration, open to all majors, brings together the most prominent strands of American music scholarship on campus and provides students with a framework for understanding the diverse musics and musical cultures of America.
Taking its inspiration from the multidisciplinary approaches characteristic of this emerging field, the concentration includes a gateway course surveying American musical history and genres; one course from a field or interdisciplinary area offering a critical perspective on American culture; three courses offering in-depth study of musical traditions essential to the American soundscape; one course in which detailed exploration of a single cultural site or perspective will deepen students' understanding of the importance of particular social institutions or circumstances shaping musical life; and a capstone research seminar in which students pursue individual projects. No previous musical experience is required of concentrators.
Requirements for the Concentration
Seven courses are required. In addition to the gateway and capstone courses, students must complete one course each from Groups I and III, and three courses from Group II.
Gateway Course:
MUSC 126 America's Music
Group I: Developing Critical Perspectives
AFAM 113 Introduction to African/African American Studies
AFAM 115 An Introduction to African American Culture, Practice, and Religion
AMST 115 Introduction to American Studies: Placing Identities
AMST 115 Introduction to American Studies: The Immigrant Experience
CAMS 110 Introduction to Cinema and Media Studies
HIST 120 Rethinking the American Experience: American History, 1607-1865
HIST 121 Rethinking the American Experience: American Social History, 1865-1945 (not offered in 2014-2015)
HIST 122 U.S. Women's History to 1877 (not offered in 2014-2015)
HIST 123 U.S. Women's History Since 1877 (not offered in 2014-2015)
HIST 125 African American History I (not offered in 2014-2015)
HIST 126 African American History II
MUSC 200 Music Theory I
MUSC 201 Music Theory II
RELG 140 Religion and American Culture
SOAN 110 Introduction to Anthropology
SOAN 111 Introduction to Sociology
WGST 110 Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies
Group II: The Soundtracks of America (at least one course must be at the 200-level or above)
AMST 214 Music in the 1970s (not offered in 2014-2015)
AMST 268 Music in American Social Movements (not offered in 2014-2015)
CAMS 188 Rock 'n' Roll in Cinema (not offered in 2014-2015)
CAMS 242 Sound and Music in New Media (not offered in 2014-2015)
MUSC 111 Classical Music: An Introduction (not offered in 2014-2015)
MUSC 114 Broadway Musicals and Social Politics
MUSC 115 Music and Film (not offered in 2014-2015)
MUSC 129 Rock on Record
MUSC 130 The History of Jazz (not offered in 2014-2015)
MUSC 131 The Blues From the Delta to Chicago
MUSC 132 Golden Age of R and B (not offered in 2014-2015)
MUSC 136 History of Rock (not offered in 2014-2015)
MUSC 141 Global Popular Music
MUSC 243 Musical Cultures of the Caribbean (not offered in 2014-2015)
MUSC 247 The 1960s Folk Music Revival
MUSC 304 Songwriters and Songwriting
MUSC 305 Seminar in American Music (not offered in 2014-2015)
MUSC 332 Motown (not offered in 2014-2015)
MUSC 333 The Beatles (not offered in 2014-2015)
Group III: Sites of the American Soundtrack
AMST 215 Diverse Bodies, One Nation (not offered in 2014-2015)
AMST 225 Beauty and Race in America
DANC 266 Reading The Dancing Body: Topics in Dance History
ENGL 223 American Transcendentalism
ENGL 234 Literature of the American South
ENGL 235 Asian American Literature (not offered in 2014-2015)
ENGL 236 American Nature Writing (not offered in 2014-2015)
ENGL 248 Visions of California (not offered in 2014-2015)
HIST 226 U.S. Consumer Culture
HIST 229 Working with Gender in U.S. History
HIST 322 Civil Rights and Black Power (not offered in 2014-2015)
POSC 219 Protest, Power & Grassroots Organizing: American Social Movements (not offered in 2014-2015)
POSC 355 Identity, Culture and Rights* (not offered in 2014-2015)
RELG 244 Hip Hop, Reggae, and Religion: Music and the Religio-Political Imagination of the Black Atlantic
RELG 246 Religion and the Black Freedom Struggle (not offered in 2014-2015)
RELG 249 Religion and American Public Life (not offered in 2014-2015)
RELG 281 Performing Tradition: Art, Religion, and Globalization
RELG 289 Global Religions in Minnesota (not offered in 2014-2015)
RELG 344 Lived Religion in America
SOAN 220 Class, Power, and Inequality in America (not offered in 2014-2015)
SOAN 227 Masculinities and Gender
SOAN 259 Comparative Issues in Native North America (not offered in 2014-2015)
SOAN 272 Race and Ethnicity in the United States
SOAN 283 Immigration and Immigrants in Europe and the United States
Capstone
MUSC 306 Seminar in American Music (Rotating topics)