Please Note: Summer 2020 Course Registration Opens Online on Monday, May 11th at 8AM

Rhythm and blues music emerged as a genre in the late 1940s, coinciding with the rise of multiple civil rights movements in the United States. This course explores culture and politics by examining the intertwined histories of rhythm and blues music, especially the form of R&B known as “soul,” and the freedom struggles that emerged between 1945 and 1980. These includes civil rights movements in Black and Mexican American communities, as well as movements for gender and sexual equality. We’ll ask questions like: Why have Black entertainers and culture producers since the early 1900s used the concept of “soul” as an expression of racial politics? How and why did Motown’s views on civil rights evolve in the 1960s and 1970s? What is the relationship between dance music and movements for gender liberation? In addition to lectures each class meeting will feature audio and visual presentations of the music.