MUSICHST 320 : Music and Peacebuilding: Questions and Applications

This seminar course will investigate the possibility that musical activities (musicking) might contribute to peacebuilding. Beginning with examination of the common sense or assumption that this is true, students will explore the use of music in promoting war and other forms of violence, theories and methods developed in peace studies concerned with cycles and root causes of violence, and some institutional and non-institutional means of addressing them. Following this, we will explore, from multiple disciplinary perspectives, the function of music in social bonding, links to emotion and cognition, and case studies involving music in community therapy, conflict transformation and other peacebuilding efforts.