Requirements

The technologies of the 21st century have created a world at our fingertips, and they have the potential to radically open our ears: the sounds of Indian ragas, Brazilian samba, Japanese shakuhachi, and Appalachian dulcimer are a click away on Youtube. Popular composers over the last 40 years, both within the U.S. and beyond its boundaries, have taken note: if Michael Jackson and Paul Simon have collaborated with the Brazilian samba-reggae ensemble Olodum in works intended primarily for U.S. audiences, Olodum’s own samba-reggae fuses the Brazilian samba to the Jamaican reggae in an entirely new idiom that reimagines connections across the African diaspora both in a rich set of symbols and in sound itself. In this FYS, we will consider the ethical and aesthetic questions that these attempts at cross-cultural borrowings raise: What stakes are there in attempts to make music across national borderlines? What gives a “foreign” genre both symbolic and musical appeal? What happens when gaps in musical understanding reveal that music is a less universal language that it initially appears to be? What does it mean to engage in cross-cultural collaborations in view of differing levels of economic, social, and political power, shaped by global economic trends?

While the search for the remains of Noah’s ark, evidence of alien abductions, or the hunt for the Loch Ness Monster may seem unrelated, they are linked as products of a uniquely modern desire for “proof.” Indeed, modernity has seen an explosion of interest in scientifically “proving” elements of the scriptures, folk tales, and myths that have shaped various peoples’ conceptions of the past and the true nature of the present. In this course, we will question the origin and function of this desire within modern globalized culture. Furthermore, we will read literature produced by authors attempting to prove such arguments, as well as those who challenge their conclusions. In this way, we will discuss the nature of “evidence” and its interpretation, and think critically about the ways in which we, as writers, interpret evidence in order to make claims and create knowledge.