Last spring semester, I taught my Civil Rights/Black Power course. It is always rewarding, but I had a group of students that made this version of the course particularly rewarding. They were curious, engaged, and always willing to veer off in surprising new directions. I like to begin certain class sessions with a song. I use music to ease the class into what are often difficult topics. They usually seem to enjoy it, and one student liked to quiz me on the choices I was making. I joked with her that I was going to write an alternative history of America based on ten songs. As the semester progressed, I thought a lot about that exchange. Why not craft a narrative that employs music as a framework of analysis? Or perhaps, a more feasible prospect in the short term is to construct a course that way?
In the fall of 2021, I am rolling out an old course called "Music, Memory, and Diaspora." The semester theme is: "A Short History of the Atlantic World in 12 Songs." We begin with the transatlantic slave trade, and the African diaspora into the Caribbean, and American South, and the transmission and evolution of music as a repository for historical memory, and crafting of identity. We'll cover the blues, the period of the Harlem Renaissance, the birth and evolution of jazz, the Negritude movement; segue back into the Caribbean for reggae and dub, the impact of the diaspora in the UK, and then finish with the emergence of Hip Hop. Sprawling, freewheeling, chaotic--just the way I like it.
The trick is choosing the playlist. What songs best tell the history that I want to tell? I'll work through the process here. Suggestions are welcome.
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