- Instructor
- Rebecca Dirksen
- Course Description
- Case studies in this class will include Hurricanes Katrina and Maria, the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, 3/11 Japan, COVID-19, and more. We will use these points of focus to prod several angles of the music + disaster equation. First, music will be positioned as an innate response to trauma, in that song has been used for survival, hope and healing. Next, we will consider music-related humanitarian efforts and current inclinations to capitalize on catastrophe, as evidenced by the phenomenon of benefit concerts, musical telethons and disaster tracks, all used to crowd-source funds for survivors. In addition, we will look at how music has been employed as a tool for re-memorying lost locations and (re)defining cultural spaces, just as it has been used to encourage the return of tourists to impacted locales and boost devastated economies.
Music & Disaster
The College of Arts