This course has been specifically designed to be taught online. It will be instructed through a combination of written and video materials, live online discussions, creative and analytical exercises and projects, and online small group sessions for feedback and questions. While instruction will be online, the course is open to any student, whether on or off-campus.

We will study transnational music and migration, the politics of borderlands and sonic boundaries, and how music moves between and across communities that have experienced mass migration and cultural displacement. We will also elucidate the relationship of music to memory, food, community, home-making, and notions of self.

As farm-to-table foodies, bamboo bicycle builders, single-origin coffee people, and certainly Indie musicians know, it is such local cultures as those found in Portland, Winnipeg, and Colorado Springs where many of the niche movements and cultural impulses are first being cultivated and are taking hold. This class focuses on Indie Rock music and the culture surrounding it. We will explore this current phenomenon by examining a wide variety of music and texts. Listening to the music will be foremost and will help us to form ways to define the music aesthetically. Accompanying this, putting the repertory into context will prompt the non-aesthetic aspects which will also shape this definition. Looking at sources on Alternative music and College Rock subcultures will in part form the broader context, as well as recent writings on Indie Rock itself. In addition, literature on related topics drawing from other disciplinary perspectives, for example, considering the “hipster” and “boho,” will help us to evaluate ideas regarding the notion of omnivorous cultural consumption and changing cultural values and economics. In addition to interdisciplinary approaches and scholarship, we will look at related manifestations of this culture, like indie film, the craft cocktail movement, et cetera. Thus our texts for this course will go beyond the scholarly literature and will incorporate our observations from such sources as sartorial blogs and Brooklyn Vegan comments, and other examples from popular media, like clips from the T.V. shows Portlandia and Girls.​