Instructor:
At Guantanamo, U.S. soldiers forced prisoners to listen to booming Eminem tracks as a kind of “no-touch torture.” Hitler claimed that his vision of an Aryan Germany was exemplified in the works of 19th century composer Richard Wagner. Mussolini used popular songs to create ideal compliant fascists. Music is a powerful medium for emotional, spiritual and intellectual connection, but is it universally good? What is good? Is good music always ethical?
Can music do harm? Can we still love music when its used for evil? In this class, we will explore these questions through case studies including popular music as an instigator of genocide in Rwanda, neo-Fascist white supremacist musical movement in the U.S. today, and the debate on cancelling Ye. We will mix classical and established scholarly interpretations with contemporary evaluations. We will consider questions of context and content in evaluating if music can do harm and if it can do good. We will also look at when music does “good” and what good it does.