Music of the Trans-Latin@ Atlantic

Music of the Trans-Latin@ Atlantic is a Social Science course taught by Wilson Valentín-Escobar.

Course Description
Employing a Trans-Latin@/American Studies frame work, this seminar will employ interdisciplinary perspectives to analyze the complex social, historical, and cultural processes and practices that have constituted U.S. Latin@, Caribbean, and Latin American musical genres and practices. The course aims to complicate the linear narratives that comprise cultural and historical knowledge and performance practices around Diasporic Cuban, Puerto Rican/Nuyorican, Dominican, and Brazilian music and dance. Hence, we will discuss and analyze: (1) the shared cultural histories and ?diasporic intimacies? between Latin@, Afro-Caribbean, Latin American and African American communities; (2) music as constituted by race, gender, geography, history and politics; (3) the overlapping historical formations across various Latin@ communities; (4) the syncretic and disjunctive elements of various musical forms (?the poetics of sound?); (5) how (trans)national and global imaginaries construct, encode, and decode the production and reception of particular musical genres (tropicalization; appropriation, etc.); and (6) critically interrogate the modernist discourses of ?origins? and ?authenticity.? Enrolled Five College students will be graded on a pass/fail basis, unless the course is used to fulfill a requirement for a major/concentration. In those circumstances, a letter grade will be issued.