What is an “American” sound? How did American “roots” become the “origin” of American music? How do commercial and social structures influence the production and reception of these musics? How do class, race, and regional identity come in to play? What happens to a melody, a performance, a lyric, as it moves through genre, time, and space?  

This course will serve as an introduction to the sounds and discussions of American roots music—spanning minstrelsy to game songs, murder ballads to hillbilly music—while keeping an eye to their effects on contemporary music and culture. Because this is primarily a writing course, students will engage in these critical debates while closely examining their methods of argumentation. By the end of the semester, students will build on the writing skills they already have by learning to comfortably engage with and respond to the aforementioned critical dialogues with well-constructed arguments of their own.