ULEC2284

Exploring the intersections of music, culture and nature, this course offers participants a site to connect musical practices to current environmental contexts, politics and practices. We begin with the premise that music is a human universal; a crucial component of every healthy society. We are all musical beings, and use music to describe and define the spaces we occupy; therefore, music serves as a meaningful site for environmental actions. This course shifts music from the margins to the center of our conversations about climate crisis. At a time of planetary peril, we convene a critically-, socially- and scientifically-engaged inquiry into the ways in which music might make a better world. Readings and case studies will explore themes from musicology, geography, psychology, and sociology, placing them in the context of historical, traditional and contemporary musical performance and musical activism. Sessions may include music from a broad range of social locations and practices; guest speakers whose research, social, and creative practice animate our course themes; and studies of musical impacts and responses to environmental crises in New Orleans, Fukushima, and Alberta’s “tar sands.” Assignments are grounded in practices of reflexivity and social praxis, connecting the subject matter of this course to lived experience and direct action—as scholars, as citizens, and as musical beings. **Students must register for both the lecture and discussion section of this course.**[This ULEC is in category 1, Tools for Social Change.]