MUS 201-01 - Intermediate Music Studies: Music in Interdisciplinary Conversations

4 credits (Spring)

Combining multiple perspectives to a new level of integration across disciplines is vital to higher education in general, and liberal arts education in particular, in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). In an effort to do the ultimate exercise in interdisciplinarity, this course investigates music through a variety of disciplinary lenses such as physics, mathematics, psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, linguistics, semiotics, philosophy, sociology, economics, gender and sexuality studies, and disability studies. Greater emphasis will be placed on open-ended discussions than on rigid verifications, as fostering a process of interdisciplinary inquiry into music would be more about “probing,” and less about “proving,” meaningful interactions, intersections, and interconnections between music and various disciplines. Through such activities as directed reading, writing, presenting, listening, and discussion leading, participants in the course shall aspire to discourse on music in an interdisciplinary context via integrating ideas from the complex of at least two of the aforementioned disciplinary perspectives with a musical topic of their choice.

Prerequisite: None.
Note: Plus-2 option available.
Instructor: Cha