putting the folksonomy in digital humanities this winter quarter @ northwestern university.
Digitizing Folk Music History
HUM 325-4 / HISTORY 395 / AMER_ST 310
T Th 3:30-4:50 pm Michael Kramer
FULFILLS DISTRO: Historical Studies
The United States folk music revival is typically thought of as an antimodern movement with acoustic guitars, camp fires and “Kumbaya” politics. To study it through digital means, however, reveals important connections between the history of the revival and issues of technology, culture, and politics in the modern world. To investigate these connections, we’ll examine this revival through readings, audio listening, documentary films, seminar discussions, and extensive digital analysis. We’ll probe what was at stake in the folk revival in relation to American culture and politics; questions of race, class, gender, age, and region; and music-making, memory, and power.