This page contains a listing of courses that address the study of Latin American and Caribbean Music. Courses designated with an asterisk (*) are core classes for the minors in Latin American and Caribbean Music, while other courses listed may be considered for elective credits within these minors. Please note that these courses are open to students without the declared minor, but some classes may have prerequisites. As always, consult with your academic advisor about how these courses can fit into your degree plan.
Fall 2023 Undergraduate Courses
MUS-M 413 | MWF 10:20am - 11:10am | Wayne Wallace
The purpose of this course is to trace the development of relevant musical traditions that comprise the crucial elements in the genesis of Latin Jazz music and Salsa in North America, Latin America and the Caribbean. We will also have discussions of issues regarding the formation of these musical styles that sprang forth from cultural, socio-political, and economic forces. Course materials are selected from the repertoire of art, folk and popular music traditions and are examined based on several matrices such as the development of the contemporary popular and art music styles.
Latin American and Latino popular music genres, their historical and cultural contexts, and their impact in the United States. For non-music majors only. Activities outside of class may be scheduled.
FOLK-F 315 | MW 1:15pm - 2:30pm | Eduardo Herrera
In this class students will closely listen to the rich and diverse musical traditions of Latin America. This survey course will look at multiple genres, including salsa, reggaeton, Latin rock, merengue, tango, cumbia, and bachata, and explore the cultural, social, political, and economic forces that shape them. Our journey will take us to the Andean region, the Hispanic Caribbean, Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico. We will delve into the ways in which music can be used to communicate important messages about the world around us, be used as a tool for region and nation building, tell stories about migration, and shed light on matters of race and gender equality. As we explore the musical landscape of Latin America, we will discover that the region is not simply a geographic location, but a complex set of ideas and relationships that cut across North, Central, and South America, and the Caribbean.
FOLK-E 295 | MW 3:00pm - 4:15pm | Fernando Orejuela
This course examines rap music and hip hop culture as artistic and sociological phenomena within diverse historical, cultural, economic and political contexts. Discussions will include the development of various hip hop styles, the appropriation by the music industry, intercultural participation, intracultural conflict, and controversies resulting from the exploitation of hip hop music and culture as a commodity for national and global consumption. Additionally, we will address race in America and its intersections with gender, class, religion, and ethnicity. Most importantly, this course carries COLL (CASE) A&H Breadth of Inquiry credit within the category of Diversity in the U.S., IUB GenEd A&H credit, and it is not meant to be a music appreciation class.
MUS-F 455 | Javier Leon
Rehearsal and performance of Latin American and Caribbean chamber music. Students must obtain the permission and signature of a faculty coach for their group and receive seven coachings, performing at least once in a public setting. Students should also be aware that a flexible schedule is required when scheduling coachings with their faculty coach.
The class will focus on the emergence of African aesthetic and conceptual principles by collecting and analyzing evidence across academic disciplines and linguistic cultures (Spanish, Dutch, French, English). The class will consider a wide range of material, from the first stirrings in the early 16th century of Africans dislocated through the slave trade to the early 20th century, by which time most of the African artistic and cultural expressions were fully developed and firmly rooted throughout the Americas. The project brings together historic travel narratives and epistles, paintings, prints, maps and other traditional art forms with contemporary work by artists throughout the Caribbean. It traces the development of a spatial and conceptual framework of African artistic practices and how they inform Caribbean artistic traits. Furthermore, it examines the location of the "Afro" Latin American and the Caribbean in the historical and contemporary global visual scene. The course will include close visual analysis of works at the Herman B. Wells and Lilly Libraries at Indiana University.
MUS-F 547 | TuTh 3:00pm - 4:15pm | Joseph Galvin
Contact director Joe Galvin at jgalvin@indiana.edu for ensemble information.
MUS-F 330 | MW 12:40pm - 1:55pm | Joseph Galvin
Hands-on percussion course focusing on folkloric percussion throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. These may include music traditions from Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, and Brazil.
MUS-X 40 | Daniel Duarte
Contact director Daniel Duarte at dduarte@iu.edu for ensemble details.
MUS-F 547 | F 2:00pm - 4:00pm | Joseph Galvin
Contact director Joe Galvin at jgalvin@indiana.edu for ensemble information.
This course explores the history of the globalization of jazz and offers a survey of local jazz scenes in various parts of the planet. Rather than presenting jazz as an exclusive U.S. tradition spreading throughout the world, the course fosters an understanding of jazz as taking shape in a series of diasporic channels, defined by the constant flux of musicians, audiences, and mass mediated music as well as by its adaptation to different musical structures, social conditions, cultural meanings, and racial ideas. By studying how musicians in multiple locales around the world have engaged with jazz, the course furthers a discussion of what jazz is, of its significance in changing historical and cultural scenarios, and of the ways in which jazz has been shaped in the course of its global dissemination. In relation to Latin America and the Caribbean, the course will include various presentations, readings, and discussions pertaining the connections between New Orleans and the Caribbean in the late 19th century and early twentieth century, the consolidation of the idea of Latin jazz in the 1940s, and the development of jazz scenes in multiple places of Latin America throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.
The purpose of this course is to trace the development of relevant musical traditions that comprise the crucial elements in the genesis of Latin Jazz music and Salsa in North America and the Caribbean. We will also have discussions of issues regarding the formation of these musical styles that sprang forth from cultural, socio-political, and economic forces. Course materials are selected from the repertoire of art, folk, and popular music traditions and are examined based on several matrices such as the development of the contemporary popular and art music styles.
In this class students will closely listen to the rich and diverse musical traditions of Latin America. This survey course will look at multiple genres, including salsa, reggaeton, Latin rock, merengue, tango, cumbia, and bachata, and explore the cultural, social, political, and economic forces that shape them. Our journey will take us to the Andean region, the Hispanic Caribbean, Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico. We will delve into the ways in which music can be used to communicate imporant messages about the world around us, be used as a tool for region and nation building, tell stories about migration, and shed light on matters of race and gender equality. As we explore the musical landscape of Latin America, we will discover that the region is not simply a geographic location, but a complex set of ideas and relationships that cut across North, Central, and South America, and the Caribbean.
Rehearsal and performance of Latin American and Caribbean chamber music. Students must obtain the permission and signature of a faculty coach for their group and receive seven coachings, performing at least once in a public setting. Students should also be aware that a flexible schedule is required when scheduling coachings with their faculty coach.
This class will focus on the emergence of African aesthetic and conceptual principles by collecting and analyzing evidence across academic disciplines and linguistic cultures (Spanish, Dutch, French, English). The class with consider a wide range of material, from the first stirrings in the early 16th-century of Africans dislocated through the slave trade to the early 20th-century, by which time most of the African artistic and cultural expressions were fully developed and firmly rooted throughout the Americas. The project brings together historic travel narratives and epistles, paintings, prints, maps, and other traditional art forms with contemporary work by artists throughout the Caribbean. It traces the development of a spatial and conceptual framework of African artistic practices and how they inform Caribbean artistic traits. Furthermore, it examines the location of the "Afro" Latin American and the Caribbean in the historical and contemporary global visual scene. The course will include close visual analysis of works at the Herman B. Wells and Lilly Libraries at Indiana University.
MUS-F 530 | MW 12:40pm - 1:55pm | Joseph Galvin
Hands-on percussion course focusing on folkloric percussion throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. These may include music traditions from Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, and Brazil.
Contact director Joe Galvin at jgalvin@indiana.edu for ensemble information.
MUS-F 547 | TuTh 3:00pm - 4:15pm | Joseph Galvin
Contact director Joe Galvin at jgalvin@indiana.edu for ensemble information.
Spring 2023 Undergraduate Courses
MUS-M/Z 395 | MWF 11:30 AM -12:20 PM | Wayne Wallace
A survey of contemporary jazz and soul (rhythm and blues) music and musicians in the United States. This class covers Latin American Music from the 1920's through the 1970's. This class will touch on Son, Tango, Mambo, Bossa Nova, Salsa and Boogaloo as they relate to R&B and Funk.
This course focuses on the history of sound recording technologies and the recording industry, from the invention of the phonograph in 1877 to the realm of digital streaming in the 21st century. Alongside with the study of the social, cultural, and musical worlds related to modern massive entertainment, it is an opportunity to tackle two big issues: on the one hand, the material design and functioning of recording technologies throughout the acoustic, electric, and digital eras; on the other hand, the development of transnational businesses around these technologies as well as the musical and social dynamics related to the cultural legitimization of recorded sound. Although phonographs, turntables, stereos, iPods, and smartphones are at the center of these stories, they are not the only technological guests. We will also explore the world of player-pianos, cinema, and radio with the aim of having a broader perspective of the industrial scenario that shaped modern entertainment. As far as Latin America is concerned, we will be studying, on the one hand, the multiple recording expeditions that the Victor company organized across the region between 1903 and 1926, and on the other, the emergence and development of local recording industries in various countries, especially in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Cuba and Chile.
MUS-M 410/413 | MW 9:45 AM - 11:00 AM | Christine Wisch
This class surveys the art music of Latin America from the sixteenth through twenty-first centuries through a series of composer case studies and characteristic works. This class places composers, works, and musical trends within cultural and historical contexts and also addresses the historiographic treatment of this repertoire through scholarly readings. Composers whose life and works will be discussed include Gutiérrez de Padilla, Jerusalem, Nunes Garcia, Carreño, Chávez, Villa-Lobos, Ginastera, Piazzolla, León, and more.
Rehearsal and performance of Latin American and Caribbean chamber music.Students must obtain the permission and signature of a faculty coach for their group and receive seven coachings, performing at least once in a public setting. Students should also be aware that a flexible schedule is required when scheduling coachings with their faculty coach.
Carnival celebrations are central to Caribbean life, and music is vital to the carnival experience. This course will tour the Caribbean basin by pairing ethnographic texts about music with audio and visual records of the festivities, providing an introduction to the diverse performances and politics of carnival traditions. To understand what’s at the heart of all of this revelry,disorder,and vagabondage, we will become acquainted with influential theories by Mikhail Bakhtin and Victor Turner as we consider carnivalesque behavior along a broad spectrum of acts of play and power.
This advanced undergraduate seminar is designed to allow students to design and develop a project that will reflect their understanding of folklore and ethnomusicology. It provides an opportunity for students to consolidate and build upon knowledge they have learned through their coursework and experiences. This semester’s class will take up the contemporary repositioning occurring in the fields of Folklore and Ethnomusicology with regard to how to ethically, critically, reflexively, and creatively rethink and rework methods, ethics, and theories when conducting research projects. We will engage with a diverse range of works and theories in order to stimulate students’ own interests and expand on possible ways of disseminating their projects. Projects will necessarily be works in progress, and we will operate as a learning community to collaboratively provide support and ideas to each other. The ethnomusicology material will include performance materials from both Latin America and the Caribbean.
FOLK majors and minors contact tarcuri@iu.edu for authorization.
Non-FOLK majors and minors contact soliter@indiana.edu for more information.
LATS-L 320 | MW 1:15 PM - 2:30 PM | Alberto Varon
This course looks at how literature, film, and music reflect and create Latinx culture. From reggaeton to hip hop, opera to boleros, indie and folk, the class puts contemporary music and sound studies in conversation with literature and film through the concept of cultural adaptation. We will examine how contemporary Latinx texts experiment with content and form while still adhering to some of the impulses common to 20th-century Latinx cultures’roots in activism and social justice. How do Latinx artists envision both past and future through their art? We will interrogate how literary and artistic expression gives shape to larger questions about the uneven distribution of power and resources, of racialization and privilege, and how, in turn, these texts shape contemporary American culture.
With focus on jazz, reggae, and hip hop, this course links musical production and consumption in the African diaspora to issues of social identity. Among those aspects of social identity considered are race, nation, religion, class, and gender. The course investigates the spread of these musical genres around the world.
A foundation in contemporary global and urban styles of dance that are interwoven and fused within professional contemporary dance such as hip-hop, krump, Israeli ga ga style, and others. This semester, the course will be focusing on primarily Afro-Cuban Folklore. Prepares preprofessional dancers to be well versed physically and intellectually in current contemporary, global dance styles.
*The class is not to prepare for professional dancers. Everyone is learning the material for the first time.
For more information contact: bcapote@iu.edu
Spring 2023 Graduate Courses
MUS-M 510/690 | MW 8:45 AM - 10:00 AM | Paul Borg
Inquiry into selected aspects of music literature and history related to specific repertories, genres, styles, performance practice/traditions, historiography or criticism.
Rehearsal and performance of Latin American and Caribbean chamber music. Students must obtain the permission and signature of a faculty coach for their group and receive seven coachings, performing at least once in a public setting. Students should also be aware that a flexible schedule is required when scheduling coachings with their faculty coach.
Latin American and Latino popular music genres, their historical and cultural contexts, and their impact in the United States. Activities outside of class may be scheduled. Contact jfleon@indiana.edu for details.
MUS-F 330 | MW 12:40 PM – 1:55 PM | Galvin
Hands-on percussion course focusing on folkloric percussion throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. These may include music traditions from Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, and Brazil.
MUS-M 413 | MWF 10:20 AM - 11:10 AM | Wayne Wallace
The purpose of this course is to trace the development of relevant musical traditions that comprise the crucial elements in the genesis of Latin Jazz music and Salsa in North America, Latin America and the Caribbean. We will also have discussions of issues regarding the formation of these musical styles that sprang forth from cultural, socio-political, and economic forces. Course materials are selected from the repertoire of art, folk and popular music traditions and are examined based on several matrices such as the development of the contemporary popular and art music styles. (Lecture only, non-performance) Contact waywalla@indiana.edu for details.
Contact director Joseph Gramley, jgramley@iu.edu for Brazilian ensemble information.
Latin American and Caribbean Chamber Music individualized ensemble. Students must find their own faculty coach. Students must obtain the permission and signature of a faculty coach for their group and receive seven coachings, performing at least once in a public setting. Students should also be aware that a flexible schedule is required when scheduling coachings with their faculty coach.
Music can move people to tears, stir patriotic feelings, incite aggression, foster mindfulness, or bring back memories of adolescent years. It can set the mood for a horror videogame, help us focus on our exercise, make us feel part of a religious congregation, accompany us in moments of grieving, and help us communicate our feelings to others. In short, music is meaningful in a myriad of ways. So how is it that something becomes meaningful to us when listening, performing, or dancing? In this course we will look at contemporary scholarship on musical meaning, emotion, and affect and learn analytical tools to examine the semiotic potentials of musicals sounds and movement.
While theory-focused, the class includes case studies from Cuba, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia (among others around the world)
HISP-S 495/498 | MW 11:30 AM – 12:45 PM | Anke Birkenmaier
How does Hispanic literature “sound,” in comparison to other literatures? What capacity does it have to evoke the music, spoken languages, and noises of a given place or time, and what insight can we gain from there? In this course we will study short stories, novels, radio broadcasts, and poetry from Latin America and Spain with focus on themes such as modernity, otherness, violence, and the popular. Our goal is to appreciate the uses of sound among major writers such as Alejo Carpentier, Mario Vargas Llosa, Julio Cortázar, Valeria Luiselli, and others, and to better understand literature’s contributions to what we might call a Hispanic soundscape. Class is taught in Spanish. Contact abirkenm@iu.edu for details.
LATS-L 398 | TuTh 11:30AM – 12:45PM | Staff
Examination of literature, art, music, performance, and other forms of aesthetic expression pertaining to the study and understanding of Latinos. Topics may vary.
*Above class meets with LTAM-L 526, ARTH-A 487, ARTH-A 587
Intensive study and analysis of selected Latin American and Caribbean problems of limited scope within an interdisciplinary format. Topics will vary but will ordinarily cut across fields, regions, or periods. Contact bamart@iu.edu for details.
LTAM-L 426 | TuTh 3:00 PM–5:30 PM | Danny James
*Above class meets second eight weeks only (10/17-12/16/2022)
*Above class meets with with HIST-F 340
Intensive study and analysis of selected Latin American and Caribbean problems of limited scope within an interdisciplinary format. Topics will vary but will ordinarily cut across fields, regions, or periods.
Modern Argentina from Independence to the Contemporary era. Focuses on the historical development of the modern Argentine nation-state and the roots of its unique social, cultural, and political formations. The material used will be of an interdisciplinary nature ranging from novels and films to anthropological reports and political speeches. Contact dajames@indiana.edu for details.
HISP-S 324 | Various sections / professors teaching this course.
Instructor permission required for each.
TuTh 3:00 PM–4:15 PM | Rhi Johnson
This course offers an introduction to the cultural history of Spain and Latin America, focusing on key moments of cultural exchange and identity construction. It traces the formation of cultural practices in Spain and Latin America from the pre-Columbian period through the twenty-first century, and it offers students a series of transatlantic and transhistorical frameworks on which to build their understanding of the material and non-material culture of the Hispanophone world. The course will cover pre-contact societies on both sides of the Atlantic; contact, conquest, and the ages of exploration; Latin American independence and identity development; 20th-Century dictatorships; and questions of ecology, migration, and sustainability. Through analysis of visual media, music, video, and written texts, students will develop skills in cultural analysis and grow their understanding of the Hispanic world and of the promise of cultural studies. Course conducted in Spanish; students will be evaluated on the basis of class participation, homework, essays, and exams. Contact rhirjohn@iu.edu for details.
TuTh 11:30 AM–12:45 PM | Olimpia Rosenthal
This course offers an introduction to the cultural history of Spain and Latin America, focusing on key moments of cultural conflict, negotiation, and exchange. It traces the formation of cultural practices in Spain and Latin America from the pre-Columbian period through the twenty-first century, and it offers students a comprehensive view of some of the major figures that have shaped Hispanic cultures: including cultural icons, philosophical thinkers, artists, and musicians. Students learn about key events and important ideas and concerns that have shaped Hispanic cultures across the centuries, such as processes of conquest and colonialism, postcolonial nation formation, revolutionary processes, and the changing roles of religion, race, and gender. Through discussions, written compositions and exams, students learn to critically read and understand Hispanic cultures, and to develop original arguments in written and spoken Spanish. The class is entirely conducted in Spanish. Contact orosenth@indiana.edu for details.
TuTh 11:30 AM–12:45 PM | Jonathan Risner
This course aims to provide students with an overview of the cultural history of Spain and Latin America from ancient to modern times, while introducing students to the analysis of cultural production in the Hispanic world. Special attention will be given to visual culture (including architecture, fine arts, photography, and film), to critical categories such as gender, race, and class, as well as those specific to or particularly relevant for the analysis of culture in the Spanish-speaking world, such as colonialism, mestizaje, transculturation, etc. Contact jtrisner@indiana.edu for details.
MW 9:45 AM–11:00 AM | Anke Birkenmaier
This course offers an introduction to the analysis of cultural production in Spain and Latin America across time. It aims to provide students with an overview of the cultural history of these regions, from pre-modern times to the present. Special attention will be given to visual culture (including fine arts, architecture, photography, and film), and to critical categories such as gender, race, and class, and transculturation. The language skills as well as the critical and analytical tools that students learn in this course will prepare them for 400-level courses in Spanish. Contact abirkenm@iu.edu for details.
MW 1:15 PM–2:30 PM | Alejandro Mejias-Lopez
This course aims to provide students with an overview of the cultural history of Latin America and Spain from ancient to modern times while introducing them to the analysis of cultural production in the Spanish-speaking world. We¿ll learn about broad historical periods and their cultural manifestations: ancient civilizations of the Americas and the Iberian Peninsula; the Roman, Aztec, and Inca empires; Muslim, Jewish, and Christian Spain in the Middle Ages; the Spanish empire and the conquest and colonization of America; nationalism and nation formation in the 19th century; revolutions, wars, democracies, and globalization in the 20th and 21st centuries. Focusing on cultural objects, we¿ll pay attention to the continuities and discontinuities between past and present, and discuss how the past affects the present and the present recreates the past. Special attention will be given to: visual culture (including fine arts, photography, and film), critical categories such as gender, race/ethnicity, and class; and other concepts relevant to Latin American and Spanish histories, such as imperialism/colonialism, nationalism, mestizaje, memory/trauma, etc. Both the language skills as well as the critical and analytical tools that students develop in this course will help improve their linguistic and cultural competence and prepare them for 400-level courses in Spanish. Contact amejiasl@indiana.edu for details.
MW 3:00 PM–4:15 PM | Staff
MW 1:15 PM–2:30 PM | Staff
MW 11:30 AM–12:45 PM | Staff
MW 9:45 AM–11:00 AM | Staff
This course offers an introduction to the cultural history of Spain and Spanish America, focusing on key moments of cultural conflict, negotiation, and exchange. It traces the formation of cultural practices in Spain and Spanish America from ancient times through the twenty-first century with a special emphasis on visual culture, and it offers students a comprehensive view of some of the major figures that have left a mark in Hispanic cultures. Students learn about key events and important ideas and concerns that have shaped Hispanic cultures across the centuries, such as processes of empire formation, conquest and colonialism, postcolonial nation building, revolutionary processes, and the changing roles of religion, race, and gender. Through discussions, written compositions and short exams, students learn to critically read and understand the complexity of what is generally known as Hispanic cultures, and to develop original arguments in written and spoken Spanish. This course is conducted in Spanish.
Fall 2022 Graduate and Doctoral Minor Courses
MUS-M 513 | MWF 10:20 AM - 11:10 AM | Wayne Wallace
The purpose of this course is to trace the development of relevant musical traditions that comprise the crucial elements in the genesis of Latin Jazz music and Salsa in North America, Latin America and the Caribbean. We will also have discussions of issues regarding the formation of these musical styles that sprang forth from cultural, socio-political, and economic forces. Course materials are selected from the repertoire of art, folk and popular music traditions and are examined based on several matrices such as the development of the contemporary popular and art music styles. (Lecture only, non-performance) Contact waywalla@indiana.edu for details.
Hands-on percussion course focusing on folkloric percussion throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. These may include music traditions from Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, and Brazil.
MUS-F 555 | Time/Location TBA
Latin American and Caribbean Chamber Music individualized ensemble. Students must find their own faculty coach.
Students must obtain the permission and signature of a faculty coach for their group and receive seven coachings, performing at least once in a public setting. Students should also be aware that a flexible schedule is required when scheduling coachings with their faculty coach.
MUS-M 510 | MW 9:45 AM – 11:00 AM | Sergio Ospina Romero
This course explores the history of the globalization of jazz and offers a survey of local jazz scenes in various parts of the planet. Rather than presenting jazz as an exclusive U.S. tradition spreading throughout the world, the course fosters an understanding of jazz as taking shape in a series of diasporic channels, defined by the constant flux of musicians, audiences, and mass mediated music as well as by its adaptation to different musical structures, social conditions, cultural meanings, and racial ideas. By studying how musicians in multiple locales around the world have engaged with jazz, the course furthers a discussion of what jazz is, of its significance in changing historical and cultural scenarios, and of the ways in which jazz has been shaped in the course of its global dissemination. In relation to Latin America and the Caribbean, the course will include various presentations, readings, and discussions pertaining the connections between New Orleans and the Caribbean in the late 19th century and early twentieth century, the consolidation of the idea of Latin jazz in the 1940s, and the development of jazz scenes in multiple places of Latin America throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Contact sospinar@iu.edu for details.
FOLK-F 525 | W 3:00 PM – 5:30 PM | Solimar Otero
This graduate course examines ethnographic writing as a practice that is both creative and observational. We will critically engage with classic, contemporary, and emerging modes of ethnography with the intention of making cross-disciplinary connections with other styles of cultural analysis. As a world-making device, ethnography attends to positionality, voice, reciprocity, and socio-cultural power relations. This course approaches these issues by incorporating works by transnational feminist, minority, LGBTQ+, and differently abled ethnographers, artists, filmmakers, performers, and cultural critics. Cultural locations under consideration include Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and North America.
FOLK-F 804 | MW 9:45 AM – 11:00 AM | Solimar Otero
This course explores everyday expressive culture from the lens of gender and sexuality studies. We engage with a range of cultures, locations, and practices that emphasize the central yet constructed nature of gender and sexuality in context. Topics include but are not limited to: artistic creation, migration, trauma, family relations, the body, spirituality, and social movements. Course materials include fairytales, rituals, film, literature, visual art, and performance from Latin America, the Caribbean, and North America, and Africa.
THTR-T 583 | TuTh 11:15 AM–12:30 PM | Eric Mayer-Garcia
*Above class meets with LATS-L 501
Our study of theatre and performance will defy borders, examining transnational collaborations that connect theatre in the United States with other parts of Latin America and the Caribbean. We will study key figures of theatre and performance in the Hemispheric Americas, including Augusto Boal, Derek Walcott, Maria Irene Fornés, Migdalia Cruz, Teatro Yuyachkani, La Pocha Nuestra, El Ciervo Encantado, Carmen Aguirre, and Lola Arias, touching on several movements and styles, including Yoruba orisha-inspired theatre, theatre for social change, postmodernism, transnational feminism, and performance art. By understanding the Americas as culturally interconnected, we will uncover the ways performance benefits from transnational exchange. Instructor permission required. Contact emayerg@iu.edu for details.
*Above class meets with LTAM-L 426, ARTH-A 487, ARTH-A 587
Intensive study and analysis of selected Latin American and Caribbean problems of limited scope within an interdisciplinary format. Topics will vary but will ordinarily cut across fields, regions, or periods. Contact bamart@iu.edu for details.
This class covers Latin American Music from the 1920's through the 1970's. This class will touch on Son, Tango, Mambo, Bossa Nova, Salsa and Boogaloo as they relate to R&B and Funk.
This course focuses on the history of sound recording technologies and the recording industry, from the invention of the phonograph in 1877 to the realm of digital streaming in the 21st century. Alongside with the study of the social, cultural, and musical worlds related to modern massive entertainment, it is an opportunity to tackle two big issues: on the one hand, the material design and functioning of recording technologies throughout the acoustic, electric, and digital eras; on the other hand, the development of transnational businesses around these technologies as well as the musical and social dynamics related to the cultural legitimization of recorded sound. Although phonographs, turntables, stereos, iPods, and smartphones are at the center of these stories, they are not the only technological guests. We will also explore the world of player-pianos, cinema, and radio with the aim of having a broader perspective of the industrial scenario that shaped modern entertainment. As far as Latin America is concerned, we will be studying, on the one hand, the multiple recording expeditions that the Victor company organized across the region between 1903 and 1926, and on the other, the emergence and development of local recording industries in various countries, especially in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Cuba and Chile. Contact sospinar@iu.edu for details.
This class surveys the art music of Latin America from the sixteenth through twenty-first centuries through a series of composer case studies and characteristic works. This class places composers, works, and musical trends within cultural and historical contexts and also addresses the historiographic treatment of this repertoire through scholarly readings. Contact cewisch@indiana.edu for details.
Latin American and Caribbean Chamber Music individualized ensemble. Students must find their own faculty coach.
Above class for non-Jacobs School of MUS Undergraduate students only; Instructor Consent Required. Techniques of execution and musical interpretation of music for the steel drums.
This course begins to organize and debate Latinx participation, invention, intention, and appropriation of hip hop culture inside and outside of the United States. We will study the cultural manifestation of hip hop from a variety of perspectives: African America, the Diaspora, and the concepts of mestizaje and “triangulation of cultures” that compound many Latino/a, Latin@, Latinx and Latin American identities. The format for this course is split between lecture and round-table discussion of assigned readings. We will focus on issues related to hip hop & Latinidad and delve into the theoretical notions and application of “performance” as “informance.” Contact forejuel@indiana.edu for details.
Sustainability, green living, and climate change are heated topics in today's intersecting arenas of science, economics, and politics. These debates are often positioned as relating to new global concerns, but ecological and environmental awareness has long cut to the core of many Indigenous and Afro-Caribbean musical cultures. This course will consider the collisions of cultures, ideologies, histories, sounds, and daily experiences that have become part of conversations about humanity's uses of the environment. We will learn about ecomusicology and acoustic ecology that explore connections between sound, music, and the environment as well as sacred ecologies that tie religious beliefs and metaphysics with environmentalist practices and scientific perspectives on the natural world. And we will evaluate attempts to change the world's trajectory for the better, ranging from the United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to local, community-led responses that are frequently grounded in sound, music, and art. Our primary materials for study will be expressive culture (literature, film, visual arts, dance, traditional healing practices, and, especially, music) in Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba, and Taíno and Maroon communities from across the Antilles. This course will be conducted as an upper-level lecture-seminar. Contact rdirksen@indiana.edu for details.
A foundation in global and urban styles of dance that are interwoven and fused with Afro-Caribbean dance such as rumba, folklore, music and others. Prepares pre-professional dancers to be well versed physically and intellectually in current contemporary, global dance styles. This course will be covering the Afro-Cuban dance and music history, embodied and rhythm practice. Students will be learning dances associated to the rhythms of Afro-Cuban folklore (i.e Orishas) and Cuban Rumba (Yambu, Guaguanco, and Columbia). This class is open to the university since the knowledge and practice is relatively a new modality to students. Contact bcapote@iu.edu for details.
Examination of literature, art, music, performance, and other forms of aesthetic expression pertaining to the study and understanding of Latinos. Topics may vary.
This course centers on African descended theories, histories, and cultures as well as interrogates given discourses of Latinidad. Contact jurodr@iu.edu for details.
Autoethnography is a feminist method that centralizes personal experience and locates it within systems of power. This course will explore autoethnography theoretically and methodologically as a feminist praxis in anthropology and beyond. Students will read texts that employ autoethnographic method, write critical autoethnography, and learn how to create experimental autoethnographic films. People with or without film production experience are encouraged to take this course. Course readings will include autoethnographies from Latin American and Caribbean authors such as Ruth Behar, Gloria Anzaldua, and Gina Athena Ulysses. Contact elguzman@iu.edu for details.
In this course, we will explore films made by Black women, non-binary, and trans directors throughout the African diaspora. From the Caribbean, to Africa, North and South America, this class will engage with films as a critical text while also exploring themes of spirituality, racial identity, queerness, racism, and resistance among others. Students will have a weekly film screening and seminar discussion. Assignments will include film reviews and a creative production assignment. Contact elguzman@iu.edu for details.
Spring 2022 Graduate Courses
For a long time, scholarship and media alike have framed jazz within the coordinates of US American exceptionalism, that is, as a music originated and developed exclusively within the United States. This course offers an opportunity not only to explore the international ventures of jazz, particularly across the Americas and the Caribbean, but to study jazz history in a way that makes justice to the transnational dynamics that made the music possible in the first place and that continued to shape it. Although the themes and repertoires under consideration span through the 20th and 21st centuries, a significant portion of the course will be devoted to the formative years of jazz as well as to the dialogues and exchanges between the United States and the Caribbean during the 1920s, the so called “jazz age”. Contact sospinar@iu.edu for details.
Latin American and Caribbean Chamber Music individualized ensemble. Students must find their own faculty coach.
Autoethnography is a feminist method that centralizes personal experience and locates it within systems of power. This course will explore autoethnography theoretically and methodologically as a feminist praxis in anthropology and beyond. Students will read texts that employ autoethnographic method, write critical autoethnography, and learn how to create experimental autoethnographic films. People with or without film production experience are encouraged to take this course. Course readings will include autoethnographies from Latin American and Caribbean authors such as Ruth Behar, Gloria Anzaldua, and Gina Athena Ulysses. Contact elguzman@iu.edu for details.
This reading-intensive seminar is intended to give you a fundamental knowledge of contemporary intellectual currents engaged with the study of musical practices in Latin America. We will examine major areas that have informed Latin American music studies, including queer studies, performance studies, coloniality/decoloniality, cultural diplomacy, critical race theory, transnational studies, actor-network theory, and Latinx studies. The goal of this course is to gain a better understanding of the web of disciplinary discourses surrounding Latin American music scholarship both in their socio-political context, and in dialogue with contemporary research in musicology and the humanities at large. Contact eduherr@indiana.edu for details.
This graduate course will introduce students to contemporary African societies and cultures through transnational and interdisciplinary lenses. Performance studies is a prominent framework that we will engage with in looking at vernacular performances in Africa and the African Diaspora - especially Afrolatino cultures. We will look at music, visual art, oral traditions, ritual, photography, embodiment, and public ceremonies as modes of self-documentation and expression. We will be interacting with classic and contemporary works by and about Africans and African diasporic populations in Nigeria, Benin, South Africa, Tanzania, Zaire, Zimbabwe, Mauritius, Cuba, Brazil, and Haiti – among other countries and populations. Contact solioter@iu.edu for details.
Fall 2021 Undergraduate Courses
This class is an introduction to the popular musical practices of various cultural, social and ethnic communities that are generally identified as Latino or Hispanic in the United States and to those musical traditions in Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America and South America that have come to inform them. The course is divided into three sections, each tracing its histories and musical lineages through different geographic and cultural regions: the U.S./Mexico Borderlands; the Caribbean; and Central and South America. In addition to exploring the musical genres, instruments and artists associated with these musics, the course examines the different social, political, cultural and historical processes that have informed their development. It also reflects on how these musics have been key in the to the shaping and negotiation of Latinx, and Latin American collective memory and identity.
Joe Galvin, DM MW 12:30–1:45 pm
This course explores percussion traditions of a dozen different countries throughout Central and South America and the Caribbean. The course uses a hands-on approach to learning foundational percussion techniques with traditional instruments and also includes weekly listenings, readings, videos, occasional guest experts, and group discussions focused on providing larger historical and cultural contexts surrounding the music. This class is open to music majors and non-majors at both the undergraduate and graduate level. A core class for the new undergraduate and doctoral minor in Latin American and Caribbean Music, this course welcomes both the novice and proficient percussionist who wants to expand their understanding of Latin American music and culture. For more course details or registration authorization please contact Dr. Galvin at jgalvin@indiana.edu
Wayne Wallace MWF 10:00–10:50 AM The course will cover and examine the crucial elements that comprise Latin Jazz music and Salsa as their own genres. Students will study and develop the knowledge to understand folkloric and popular musical styles from the United States, Mexico, the Caribbean and South America. Students will gain an understanding of the historical development of Latin Jazz and Salsa, their cultural/musical traditions, and how elements from different cultures or sub-cultures (art music versus urban popular music styles) fused or influenced each other as a result of syncretic processes.
Director: Joe Galvin
IU’s Latin American Ensemble (MUS-X414) is a performing chamber group playing popular and folkloric music from the Caribbean, as well as Central and South America. The course typically focuses on Afro-Cuban music styles such as rumba, changüí, son, danzón, chachachá, charanga, and salsa. However, the repertoire often ventures further out to include music from many other Latin American countries.
No previous experience in Latin American music is necessary to join. X414 is open to all instrumentalists both undergraduate and graduate students, music majors and non-majors. This course can be used as chamber ensemble credit with approval. For registration approval, questions, or more detailed information please contact the ensemble director, Joe Galvin at jgalvin@indana.edu.
Please note that in addition to the scheduled class times, this course requires availability for a performance December 10 at 8 PM.
Dr. Solimar Otero Tuesdays and Thursday 11:30 am – 12:45 pm
This advanced undergraduate seminar is designed to allow students to design and develop a project that will reflect their understanding of folklore and ethnomusicology. It provides an opportunity for students to consolidate and build upon knowledge they have learned through their coursework and experiences. This semester’s class will take up the contemporary repositioning occurring in the fields of Folklore and Ethnomusicology with regard to how to ethically, critically, reflexively, and creatively rethink and rework methods, ethics, and theories when conducting research projects. We will engage with a diverse range of works and approaches transnationally, especially from the African Diaspora, Caribbean, and Latin America, in order to stimulate students’ own interests and expand on possible ways of disseminating their projects. Projects will necessarily be works in progress, and we will operate as a learning community to collaboratively provide support and ideas to each other.
Fall 2021 Graduate Courses
Dr. Sergio Ospina Romero Tuesdays and Thursdays, 7:45am–9:00am
This course explores the history of the globalization of jazz and offers a survey of local jazz scenes in various parts of the planet. Rather than presenting jazz as an exclusive U.S. tradition spreading throughout the world, the course fosters an understanding of jazz as taking shape in a series of diasporic channels, defined by the constant flux of musicians, audiences, and mass mediated music as well as by its adaptation to different musical structures, social conditions, cultural meanings, and racial ideas. By studying how musicians in multiple locales around the world have engaged with jazz, the course furthers a discussion of what jazz is, of its significance in changing historical and cultural scenarios, and of the ways in which jazz has been shaped in the course of its global dissemination. In relation to Latin America and the Caribbean, the course will include various presentations, readings, and discussions pertaining the connections between New Orleans and the Caribbean in the late 19th century and early twentieth century, the consolidation of the idea of Latin jazz in the 1940s, and the development of jazz scenes in multiple places of Latin America throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.
Dr. Sergio Ospina Romero Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:30am–12:45pm
This course focuses on the history of sound recording technologies and the recording industry, from the invention of the phonograph in 1877 to the realm of digital streaming in the 21st century. Alongside with the study of the social, cultural, and musical worlds related to modern massive entertainment, it is an opportunity to tackle two big issues: on the one hand, the material design and functioning of recording technologies throughout the acoustic, electric, and digital eras; on the other hand, the development of transnational businesses around these technologies as well as the musical and social dynamics related to the cultural legitimization of recorded sound. Although phonographs, turntables, stereos, iPods, and smartphones are at the center of these stories, they are not the only technological guests. We will also explore the world of player-pianos, cinema, and radio with the aim of having a broader perspective of the industrial scenario that shaped modern entertainment. As far as Latin America is concerned, we will be studying, on the one hand, the multiple recording expeditions that the Victor company organized across the region between 1903 and 1926, and on the other, the emergence and development of local recording industries in various countries, especially in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Cuba and Chile.
Dr. Judah Cohen MW 1:10 to 2:25 PMMusical theater, much like opera or other large-scale music-driven narratives, presents a rich landscape of racial representation. In this class, we’ll explore how race factors into the creation and recreation of about a dozen key American musical theater pieces, including Shuffle Along, Show Boat, West Side Story, Flower Drum Song, Pacific Overtures, The Gospel at Colonus, Jelly's Last Jam, and Caroline, or Change. We will look at their “original” forms, but also follow their restagings over time to learn how these works balance artistic status with changing social movements and norms. This course can count for the master's degree music history requirement, the master's or doctoral degree Other Required Credits general electives requirement, or the doctoral minor in music history. Diploma students with the appropriate pre-requisites can also take it as a part of the PD music course requirement.
Wayne Wallace MWF 10:00–10:50 AM
The course will cover and examine the crucial elements that comprise Latin Jazz music and Salsa as their own genres. Students will study and develop the knowledge to understand folkloric and popular musical styles from the United States, Mexico, the Caribbean and South America. Students will gain an understanding of the historical development of Latin Jazz and Salsa, their cultural/musical traditions, and how elements from different cultures or sub-cultures (art music versus urban popular music styles) fused or influenced each other as a result of syncretic processes.
Director: Joe Galvin
IU’s Latin American Ensemble (MUS-X414) is a performing chamber group playing popular and folkloric music from the Caribbean, as well as Central and South America. The course typically focuses on Afro-Cuban music styles such asrumba, changüí, son, danzón, chachachá, charanga,andsalsa. However, the repertoire often ventures further out to include music from many other Latin American countries.
No previous experience in Latin American music is necessary to join. X414 is open to all instrumentalists both undergraduate and graduate students, music majors and non-majors. This course can be used as chamber ensemble credit with approval. For registration approval, questions, or more detailed information, including rehearsal times, please contact the ensemble director, Joe Galvin atjgalvin@indana.edu.
Please note that in addition to the scheduled class times, this course requires availability for a performance December 10 at 8 PM.
List of Past Course Offerings
Fall 2021 - Undergraduate MUS-Z 213 | Latin American and Latino Popular Music and Culture MUS-F 330 | Foundations of Latin American and Caribbean Percussion* MUS-M 413 | Topics in Latin American Music: Variable Topics: History and Performance of Latin Jazz and Salsa* MUS-X 414 | Latin American Ensemble FOLK-F 497 | Advanced Undergraduate Seminar: Rethinking and Reworking Folklore and Ethnomusicology
Fall 2021 - Graduate MUS-M 510 | Topics in Music Literature: Jazz Around the World MUS-M 510 | Topics in Music Literature: Sound Recording: From Edison to Spotify MUS-M 510 | Topics in Music Literature: Race in American Music Theater MUS-M 513 | Topics in Latin American Music: History and Performance of Latin Jazz and Salsa* MUS-X 414 | Latin American Ensemble
Spring 2021 MUS-M 510/690: Latin American Music and Identity MUS-X 414: Latin American Ensemble
Fall 2020 MUS-M 510/MUS-M 690: Latin American Colonial Music MUS-M 413/MUS-M 513: History and Performance of Latin American Music MUS-Z 213: Latin American Popular Music MUS-X 414: Latin American Ensemble
Spring 2020 MUS-M 510/690: Music and Nationalism in Latin America MUS-X 414: Latin American Ensemble
Fall 2019 MUS-Z 213: Latin American and Latino Popular Culture and Music MUS-M 413 & MUS-M 513: History and Performance of Latin American Music MUS-X 414: Latin American Ensemble
Spring 2019 MUS-M 510: Latin American Colonial Music MUS-X 414: Latin American Ensemble
Fall 2018 MUS-Z 213: Latin American and Latino Popular Culture and Music MUS-X 414: Latin American Ensemble MUS-M 413 & MUS-M 513: History and Performance of Latin American Music
Spring 2018 MUS-X 414: Latin American Ensemble MUS-Z 213: Latin American and Latino Popular Culture and Music
2017 MUS-M 510/690: Music and Nationalism in Latin America MUS-M 413: History and Performance of Latin American Music MUS-X 414: Latin American Ensemble MUS-Z 213: Latin American and Latino Popular Culture and Music
2016 MUS-M 690 / MUS-M 510: Topics in Music Literature: Music of Colonial Latin America
2015 MUS- M 413/MUS-Z 413/LATS-L 400: Latin American and Latino Popular Music and Culture MUS-M 690/ MUS-M 510: Seminar in Latin American Music: 20th- Century Masters: Chávez, Villa-Lobos and Ginastera MUS-M 513: Latin American and Latino Popular Music Culture - A Historical Introduction to Brazilian Popular Music
