Course Description
Following the victories of the first nationalist movements in the late 18th century, the nation-state rapidly became the world’s primary mode of political organization. So ubiquitous has this form of political organization become today that it is easy to take the nation-state for granted—its qualities, its definitions, and its “naturalness.” When we hear the word “nation” or “nation-state,” we all know what we’re talking about, right?
The apparent obviousness of these categories aside, definitions of the nation-state remain notoriously elusive. 21st-century scholars continue to debate question like, “What is a nation?”, “Where do nations come from?”, and “Who belong——or gets to belong——to a nation?” Far from abstract theories, these questions have real-world implications, providing a locus for debates about what form our socio-political lives should take, and who should be granted the right to participate in our political processes.
Despite the many outstanding questions, it is clear that cultural products——literature, theater, the plastic arts, and music——play a significant role in all nationalisms. In this class, we will focus on music as a means of understanding how nations are formed, maintained, and contested. Drawing on a set of interdisciplinary readings, we will explore the theoretical foundations of nations and nationalism, and the ways that national imaginaries interact with some of the defining issues of the modern world, including colonialism, globalism, race, totalitarianism, and democracy. We will supplement these theoretical readings with listenings from areas as varied as the US, the Dominican Republic, Zimbabwe, and China as a means to explore the many ways that people have heard the nation into existence.
Student Work
By default, all students in this course will collaborate to produce a group-authored blog project on a topic, artist, or work of their choosing. For examples of previous projects, you can visit the Music and Nationalism section of the Ethnomusicology @ HMC blog.
Groups may propose an alternate final project format that better suits their interests. This class does not fulfill the HMC Writing Requirement.