ENG 4934 Fall 2018 Kilgore

Music critic Greil Marcus coined the term "the old, weird America" to describe the mysterious, fringe expressions of early American folk music. Borrowing Marcus' concept but broadening its scope, this course explores the roots of popular American music and performance traditions in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. We will examine in particular how American folk forms and commercial entertainment historically blend and merge; they become part of the same historical stage, real and imaginary, that we now call "popular culture" to mean cultural expressions produced both by common people outside of the official world of power and privilege and for mass audiences in the entertainment industry (often in the service of power and privilege). It's the vernacular aesthetic of old American music and performance-from spirituals to freak shows to country music to burlesque-that we will aim to understand.