| | Coordinate Major in Musical Cultures of the Gulf South |
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Program Description
The Gulf South produced a distinctive set of musical cultures that continues to influence national and international musical currents: jazz blues, zydeco, Cajun music, and brass-band music. As a city central to the African diaspora, New Orleans gave birth to a pan-African regional culture equally influenced by immigrants from the Caribbean - Cuba and Haiti, in particular - as by the ruling nations of Spain and France. The mission of this coordinate undergraduate major is to educate students in the underlying currents of these musical cultures through a historical grasp of the Atlantic slave trade, the rituals of expressive culture and resistance in the Caribbean, and the social, economic, and political history of the region. The Gulf South extends from Texas across the coasts of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, around Florida into the Caribbean, where Cuba lies a mere 90 miles away. "New Orleans Music" is a rubric that stretches from ragtime to hiphop, and includes the city's seminal influence on rock and roll, funk, and rhythm and blues, as each assumed national form. New Orleans remains the site of a range of vibrant living cultural traditions, including the Mardi Gras Indians; the second-line culture of Social Aid and Pleasure clubs, and Creole and Cajun cuisine. This coordinate major is offered under the auspices of the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South.
Required Courses
The coordinate major Musical Cultures of the Gulf South first requires students to declare a major in another discipline before declaring the MCGS coordinate major. The program is an interdisciplinary, 27-credit program that requires courses in Music, Anthropology, History, Theater and Dance, and has elective offerings in English, African Diaspora Studies, Communication, and French.
There are three required core courses:
- MUSC 1900 - New Orleans Music
- MCGS 2000 - Introduction to Musical Cultures of the Gulf South
- ANTH 3395 - Ethnography of Performance and Identity in New Orleans and French Louisiana
Electives
From among the courses listed below, students must select a course at the 3000-level or above in Music, History, or Anthropology. Students will take a minimum of three additional electives or nine credits from the courses listed in the major in order to reach a minimum of 27 credits for the major. A total of two 1000-level courses can count towards the coordinate major. No more than two dance courses can count towards the major.
- ADST 1550 - New Orleans Hip Hop I
- ADST 2000 - Introduction to African and African Diaspora Studies
- ADST 3550 - Third World Cinema
- ANTH 3395 - Ethnography of Performance and Identity in New Orleans and French Louisiana
- ANTH 4930 - Languages of Louisiana
- COMM 3280 - Media Histories
- DANC 1910 - African Dance I
- DANC 1950 - Jazz Dance I
- DANC 2230 - Introduction to Dance - Jazz Dance
- DANC 2910 - African Dance II
- DANC 2950 - Jazz Dance II
- DANC 3240 - American/Afro-Caribbean Social and Vernacular Dance Forms
- DANC 4900 - Building Community in the Arts
- ENLS 4030 - Literary New Orleans
- FREN 4110 - Field Research on French in Louisiana / FREN 6110 Field Research on French in Louisiana
- GESS 4500 - Gender and Archives
- HISB 4250 - The Atlantic Slave Trade
- HISL 1720 - Introduction to Caribbean History
- HISL 3200 - History of Voodoo and Other African Derived Religions
- HISU 2510 - Atlantic World 1450-1800
- HISU 3220 - Autobiography and Southern Identity
- HISU 4694 - Creation of Jazz in New Orleans
- HISU 6420 - American Revolutions
- MUSC 3340 - History of Jazz
- MUSC 3360 - The Latin Tinge: Jazz and Latin American Music in New Orleans and Beyond
- MUSC 3430 - The Blues in American Life
- MUSC 3440 - African American Music
- URST 3100 - Urban Geography