POL S 447 B: Advanced Seminar in Comparative Politics

SOUNDTRACKS OF CHANGE: MUSIC AS A TOOL FOR POLITICAL AND SOCIAL IDENTITY IN GERMANY AND EUROPE

The course will contribute to a better understanding of the unique role played by music in social movements and mobilization. The focus is placed on the German and European experience. The course unfolds in four parts. First, we will ask ourselves why music is so ideological, how it concretely serves social movements and relates to their cognitive praxis. Second, we will look at the contribution of music to the creation of local, (trans)national and global identities. We will then investigate the differences between national and nationalist music and the relationship existing between music and national identity, taking into account the case of Germany. Third, we will examine the use of music by radical movements such as the expressive revolutions at the end of the 1960s in Italy and Netherlands and the White Power Music Scene in Greece, France and Sweden. The last part of the seminar will consider more recent developments such as musical expression within migrant communities in Germany, as well as the role of the Eurovision Song Contest in social and political identity formation.