Full sample course

About this document

These sample modules are here to be useful to educators considering incorporating materials from the World Music Textbook into their courses. They are licensed with a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA policy, which allows permission to revise or reuse them as you see fit, as long as it is for non-commercial purposes and you, in turn, maintain the same open license. You can find other versions of document at https://worldmusictextbook.org. The “No Change” clause refers to publication: you can make any edits you would like for your own classes, but we ask that you let us know if you have any suggestions or additions so that we can publish new versions whenever possible!

These samples are designed as a complete course to be delivered over a university semester. They are organized as an online asynchronous series of modules, but they could be revised into an organization for a live delivery, as well. You are welcome to copy and paste them directly with basic attribution, though the World Music Textbook is constantly adding new content, so we recommend visiting the page to see if there are other chapters or resources that you might want to incorporate.

There are some parts of this where I (Chris Witulski, as the initial author) focus on topics or approaches that I use in my own teaching. Anyone adapting these modules can shift away from my perspective to their own. Similarly, I created this for use in my own classes and I draw on some resources that we have or that I have requested from our library. I use a number of films, for example, that may not be available everywhere. I am leaving them out, but I recommend checking with your library for interesting additions to the readings. And please let us know if you have any ideas for other resources that work well. We can add them to the site or shift some of these assignment suggestions into lists that enable student choice.

Schedule and overview for this sample course design

Overview (Week 1)

• Online: Music as an international language
• Online: What makes music universal
• Assignment: Autobiography and universals

Listening (Weeks 2 and 3)

• WMT: On Rhythm
• Hip hop and pop analysis articles
• Assignment: Making and analyzing music

Identity (Week 4)

• WMT: Music and identity in Danza Azteca
• Library documentary: Wajd, Songs of Separation or something similar
• Assignment: Interview and “elder”

Telling stories (Week 5)

• Open musicology: Ancient Mesopotamian Music
• Assignment: Sound walk

Music and gender (Week 6)

• WMT: Music and gender
• WMT: The study of music and gender
• Assignment: Music, gender, and cultural context

Music and archives (Weeks 7 and 8)

• WMT: Music and archives
• WMT: Ol Woman Blong Wota
• WMT: Stories of Cambodian angkuoch
• Assignment: Institutional digital archives

Tradition and change (Week 9)

• Online: choices on Mande
• Assignment: Tradition and change

Nationalism (Week 10)

• WMT: Music and nationalism
• WMT: Music and nationalism annotated playlist
• Assignment: Musical event report

Politics of race (Week 11)

• WMT: Articulating race and nation in Brazilian popular song
• Assignment: Listening through Race and Experience

Identity, nationalism, race, and tradition: Banjos as a case study (Week 12)

• Online: Rhiannon Giddens keynote lecture
• Online: Afropop worldwide podcast episode
• Assignment: Instruments and contested meanings

Music, faith, and trance (Week 13)

• WMT: Moroccan trance: unruly bodies and the colonial imagination
• Assignment: Music, trance, and powerful experiences

Representation and exoticism in music (Week 14)

• WMT: Video game music
• Assignment: Reflecting on musical representation and exoticism

Ownership and authenticity (Week 15)

• Online: Who Owns Beauty?
• Online: The Ghosts in the Machine
• Assignment: Reflecting on your music habits