2020-21 Academic Catalog

We’ll investigate music's relationships to health, disability, and disease using scholarly articles, documentaries, historical archives, and current events. How does musical activity promote or enhance health in everyday life? How do various disabilities shape musical experience? How can music intervene in disease processes? Our inquiry will include the many musical responses to and adaptations necessitated by COVID-19. We will consider the place of sound and music as interventions in systemic racism, increasingly recognized as a public health threat. Students will complete a research paper and presentation on a topic of their choosing, guided throughout the term.