MUS 407/507: Racial Ideologies in Latin American Music and Dance
MW 10:00-11:50 AM Room: GER 303 Instructor: Juan Eduardo Wolf
Time and time again, Latin American music and dance is described as the result of the mixing of three cultures: the African, European, and Native American. This perspective, however, oversimplifies the complex ways ideas about race, music, and dance developed during Latin America’s colonial era and how they continue to interact today. In this class, we will read about the ways in which racial ideologies shaped the musics that now represent various Latin American nations. We will discuss how certain instruments (charangos, drums, harps) and expressions (candombe, samba, tango, wayno, yaravi) associated with Blackness and Indianness were symbolically appropriated and what impact those appropriations had on how people saw and continue to understand race. Graduate students participating in the class will be assigned additional readings, class preps, and more intensive writing projects.
Selected Texts Include:
Andrews, George Reid. 2010. Blackness in the White Nation: a History of Afro-Uruguay. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Chasteen, John Charles. 2004. National Rhythms, African Roots: the Deep History of Latin American Popular Dance. Alberquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Mendoza, Zoila. 2008. Creating Our Own: Folklore, Performance, and Identity in Cuzco, Peru. Durham: Duke University Press
