SPAN 356 Hispanic Popular Song
This course will examine the role of Hispanic popular songs as forms of contestatory discourse. By focusing on their cultural, historical and socio-political contexts, we will attempt to reconstruct the diverse realities from which popular songs emerge and the relationship between songs and politics, revolution, gender and sexual issues, religion, national identity, race relations, and migration, among others. We will study a wide variety of songs representing the 20th and 21st centuries, different musical genres (boleros, salsa, corridos, rap, rock, Nueva Trova, etc.), and several countries from North and South America. This course will focus on the development of research skills and the application of methodological and theoretical approaches to the analysis of popular songs. Pre-requisites: SPAN 204 or 211. Taught in Spanish.