Topic for Winter 2013: Middle East & India
This course will cover the main aspects of Middle Eastern and Indian music, including Arab, Turkish, Persian, Hindustani (North Indian), and Carnatic (South Indian) music, as well as various types of folk and popular music. Students will become familiar with Middle Eastern and Indian tuning systems, rhythmic patterns, formal structures, and performance practices. We will also look at music’s role in society in these regions as well as among diasporic populations, and explore music’s connections to other areas of artistic, social, religious, and political life.

Topic for Spring 2013: The Native American Inside -- Perspectives of Contemporary Indigenous Women
This course is designed as an interdisciplinary examination of Native identity and the changing role of women in indigenous culture. It will explore the ways gender, race, and ethnicity shape musical discourse as well as narrative constructions of nation in regional contexts. All course readings written by indigenous women authors.