Acoustic America: Listening and Hip Hop in American Popular Culture

Instructor: Hilary BerwickWellman 201 / CRN 94173T&R 6:00 - 7:30 PM

Listening isn’t something we do naturally - we may be able to hear, but the way we listen to our world is culturally constructed, physically manipulated and politically influenced.

This class will examine the experience of listening, analyzing how sound relates to war and to architecture, to work and to play. We will apply this thinking to pop music and hip hop, asking: Can music have a sound outside of its politics? What happens when hip hop sounds like pop music?

Spring 2012: AMS 101A