This course examines music - its production, its consumption, and it contested role in society - from a distinctly sociological lens. Why do we prefer certain songs, artists, and musical genres over others? How do we 'use' music to signal group membership and create social categories like class, race, ethnicity, and gender? How does music perpetuate, but also challenge, broader inequalities? Why do some songs become hits? What effects are technology and digital media having on the ways we experience and think about music? Course readings and lectures will explore the various answers to these questions by introducing students to key sociological concepts and ideas. Class time will be spent moving between core theories, listening sessions, discussion of current musical events, and an interrogation of students - own musical experiences. Students will undertake a number of short research and writing assignments that call on them to make sociological sense of music in their own lives, in the lives of others, and in society at large.
4 units · Letter or Credit/No Credit · GER: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
This course examines music - its production, its consumption, and it contested role in society - from a distinctly sociological lens. Why do we prefer certain songs, artists, and musical genres over others? How do we 'use' music to signal group membership and create social categories like class, race, ethnicity, and gender? How does music perpetuate, but also challenge, broader inequalities? Why do some songs become hits? What effects are technology and digital media having on the ways we experience and think about music? Course readings and lectures will explore the various answers to these questions by introducing students to key sociological concepts and ideas. Class time will be spent moving between core theories, listening sessions, discussion of current musical events, and an interrogation of students - own musical experiences. Students will undertake a number of short research and writing assignments that call on them to make sociological sense of music in their own lives, in the lives of others, and in society at large.
Offered in Autumn 2025 at Stanford University.