About this course: What is a musician’s response to the condition of the world? Do musicians have an obligation and an opportunity to serve the needs of the world with their musicianship? At a time of crisis for the classical music profession, with a changing commercial landscape, a shrinking audience base, and a contraction in the number of professional orchestras, how does a young musician construct a career today? Are we looking at a dying art form or a moment of reinvigoration? In this course we will develop a response to these questions, and we will explore the notion that the classical musician, the artist, is an important public figure with a critical role to play in society. The course will include inquiry into a set of ideas in philosophy of aesthetics; a discussion about freedom, civil society, and ways that art can play a role in readying people for democracy; discussion on philosophy of education as it relates to the question of positive social change; and an exploration of musical and artistic initiatives that have been particularly focused on a positive social impact. Guiding questions for this course inquiry will include: - How can classical music effect social change? - How has music made positive change in communities around the globe? - What can the field of classical music learn from other movements for social change? - How have educators and philosophers thought about the arts and their connection to daily contemporary life? Each class will explore one critical question through lectures, discussions, interviews, or documentaries.
Created by: Yale University
Taught by: Sebastian Ruth, Visiting Lecturer in Community Engagement
Yale School of Music
| Commitment | 7 weeks of study, 2-3 hours/week |
| Language | English |
| How To Pass | Pass all graded assignments to complete the course. |
| User Ratings |
Syllabus
WEEK 1
Welcome to Music and Social Action
Learn what this course is about, who's teaching it, and other ways you can explore this topic. Meet and greet your peers as well!
2 videos, 5 readings
- Video: Welcome to Music and Social Action
- Reading: Course Overview
- Video: Introduction to the course
- Reading: Meet Your Instructors!
- Discussion Prompt: Introduce yourself!
- Reading: Readings and Resources
- Reading: Grading and Logistics
- Reading: Course Certificate
WEEK 2
What is Art and How Do We Experience It?
In this module, we will discuss philosophers John Dewey and Maxine Greene, and their respective views on the possibilities contained within aesthetic experiences. How can aesthetic experience meaningfully contribute to public life?
4 videos, 10 readings
- Video: 2.1 - An introduction to Dewey and Greene
- Reading: Dewey's Aesthetics
- Reading: The John Dewey Society
- Video: 2.2 - Making and perceiving art as a human impulse
- Reading: (Optional) Art as Experience by John Dewey Chapters 1 and 2
- Video: 2.3 - The aesthetic dimension and openings
- Reading: (Optional) Releasing the Imagination: Essays on Education, the Arts, and Social Change by Maxine Greene
- Reading: The Maxine Greene Center for Aesthetic Education and Social Imagination
- Reading: (Optional) The dialectic of freedom by Maxine Greene
- Video: 2.4 - Ways of seeing: how does an artistic outlook change the way we see the world?
- Reading: Flow, the secret to happiness
- Reading: (Optional) Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
- Reading: (Optional) The Aesthetic Dimension by Herbert Marcuse
- Reading: The Barnes Foundation
- Discussion Prompt: The differences between Dewey and Greene's ideas
Graded: What Is Art and How Do We Experience It?
Graded: Relate Dewey's/Greene's ideas to your life!
WEEK 3
Democracy and the Arts, Part 1
How can artistic and aesthetic experiences make a more engaged public? Is there a connection between individual transformative experiences with art and any broader societal impact? What is the role of the artist in a democracy?
6 videos, 6 readings
- Video: 3.1 - Democracy and the arts, Part I
- Video: 3.2 - What is the role of the arts in a free society?
- Reading: Dream Songs: The Music of the March on Washington
- Video: 3.3 - Art as a way of understanding the world
- Video: 3.4 - Civil Society and Freedom: what do we mean by freedoms in a democracy?
- Reading: (Optional) Art as Experience by John Dewey (Chapter 14)
- Video: 3.5 - Regard for Otherness: Maxine Greene and civil society
- Reading: Imagining Art + Social Change
- Reading: Music & Civil Society: A Symphony in the Making
- Video: 3.6 - Discussion about Dewey, Maxine Greene, conceptions of freedom and the arts
- Reading: Elements of the Philosophy of Right by G.W. Hegel
- Reading: (Optional) Civil Society: Old Images, New Visions by John Keane
Graded: Democracy and the Arts, Part I
Graded: The concept of regard
WEEK 4
Democracy and the Arts, Part II
How have we conceived of the artist's role in American society? What are examples of artists furthering civil society? How do we continually imagine fulfilling the promise of a democracy, embracing Maxine Greene's notion that it is always unfinished?
5 videos, 6 readings
- Video: 4.1 - Democracy and the Arts, Part II
- Reading: (Optional) A people's art history of the United States: 250 years of activist art and artists working in social justice movements
- Video: 4.2 - The New Deal
- Reading: The New Deal Stage: Selections from the Federal Theatre Project 1935-1939
- Reading: (Optional) “American Resources in the Arts” by Holger Cahill
- Video: 4.3 - John F. Kennedy's ideal
- Reading: Remarks by John F. Kennedy at Amherst College (audio recording and transcript)
- Reading: (Optional) All of This Music Belongs to the Nation: The WPA’s Federal Music Project and American Society by Kenneth Bindas
- Video: 4.4 - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his dream
- Reading: Martin Luther King, Jr. “I Have a Dream.”
- Video: 4.5 - Discussion about President Kennedy, Dr. King, social imagination
Graded: Democracy and the Arts, Part II
Graded: Democracy and the Arts
WEEK 5
Arts and Urban Renewal
How have the arts been a driving force for change in American cities? What are the potentials and pitfalls when positioning artists in this role? This class will pursue these questions through a series of case studies, including a video tour of arts organizations focused on urban renewal in Providence and New Haven, and the development of Lincoln Center in New York City.
4 videos, 8 readings
- Reading: Arts Organizations featured throughout this module
- Video: 5.1 - Introduction to the class
- Video: 5.2 - How the arts change cities/neighborhoods
- Reading: (Optional) The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
- Reading: A Marvelous Order: An opera about Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs
- Reading: The Power Walker by Charles McGrath
- Reading: (Optional) Master builder of New York City by Robert Moses
- Reading: (Optional) The battle of Lincoln Square: neighbourhood culture and the rise of resistance to urban renewal by Samuel Zipp
- Video: 5.3 - Conversations with directors of Providence and New Haven organizations
- Video: 5.4 - Conversation with Jamie Bennett of ArtPlace America
- Reading: (Optional) West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Laurents, Stephen Sondheim, Jerome Robbins
- Reading: Somewhere by Matthew Lopez
- Discussion Prompt: Artists in your community taking social action
Graded: Arts and Urban Renewal
Graded: Artists in your community
WEEK 6
20th Century Artists and Social Commitment
This class will explore examples of artists from the past hundred years who have been committed to making positive contributions to political or social issues of their time.
4 videos, 11 readings
- Video: 6.1 - Pablo Casals, conscience and country
- Reading: What Happened, Miss Simone? (Netflix Documentary)
- Reading: (Optional) "I Don't Trust You Anymore": Nina Simone, Culture, and Black Activism in the 1960s by Ruth Feldstein
- Reading: Billie Holiday - Strange Fruit
- Reading: (Optional) Harlem Nocturne: Women Artists and Progressive Politics During World War II
- Reading: (Optional) Joys and Sorrows: Reflections by Pablo Casals by Pablo Casals and Albert Kahn
- Video: 6.2 - Bronislaw Huberman, Europe and Palestine in the 1930s
- Reading: (Optional) Orchestra of Exiles by Josh Aronson
- Video: 6.3 - Yehudi Menuhin and taking political action
- Video: 6.4 - Discussion about Casals and Huberman
- Reading: (Optional) "The Other West Side Story: Urbanization and the Arts Meet at the Lincoln Center" by Julia Foulkes
- Reading: (Optional) The sound of freedom : Marian Anderson, the Lincoln Memorial, and the concert that awakened America by Raymond Arsenault
- Reading: "Marian Anderson Sings at the Lincoln Memorial" Newreel Story
- Reading: (Optional) Sounds of the New Deal : the Federal Music Project in the West by Peter Gough
- Reading: (Optional) Pablo Casals : a cry for peace by Robert Snyder
- Peer Review: Casals and Huberman
- Discussion Prompt: The connection between humanitarian and artistic work
WEEK 7
21st Century Artists and Social Commitment
This class will involve a discussion with performing musicians and a look at examples of artists and musicians from the past hundred years who have been committed to making positive contributions to political or social issues of their time.
5 videos, 7 readings
- Video: 7.1 - 21st Century Artists and Social Commitment
- Reading: (Optional) An Orchestra Beyond Borders: Voices of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra by Elena Cheah
- Reading: (Optional) Knowledge is the Beginning by Paul Smaczny
- Video: 7.2 - Conversation with pianist Jonathan Biss
- Video: 7.3 - Barenboim and the West Eastern Divan Orchestra
- Reading: (Optional) Music Quickens Time by Daniel Barenboim
- Video: 7.4 - Ai Wei Wei and protest through art making
- Reading: (Optional) Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry by Alison Klayman
- Reading: It's Not Beautiful by Evan Osnos
- Reading: No Place for Self-Pity, No Room for Fear by Toni Morrison
- Reading: (Optional) The next American revolution: sustainable activism for the twenty-first century
- Video: 7.5 - Conversation with pianist Vijay Iyer
- Peer Review: Effective means of social action
- Discussion Prompt: Opportunity vs. obligation for the 21st century artist
WEEK 8
Creating Social Action
In this final lecture, we will discuss traditions of social action, and how artists work toward building civil society.
4 videos, 5 readings
- Video: 8.1 - Paolo Freire and working with oppressed populations
- Reading: Interview with Paulo Freire. 1996.
- Reading: (Optional) Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
- Video: 8.2 - Robert Greenleaf and leading through serving
- Reading: "The Servant as Leader" by Robert Greenleaf
- Video: 8.3 - Discussion about Freire and education
- Video: 8.4 - Art, Service, and Civil Society
- Reading: Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership
- Reading: (Optional) Democracy and music education : liberalism, ethics, and the politics of practice
Graded: Creating Social Action
Graded: Artistic practice influenced by Freire
WEEK 9
Final Reflection
One of the primary goals of this course has been to explore the connections between key concepts from the philosophy of aesthetics, historical examples of musicians who worked toward social action, and contemporary artistic initiatives. This final response is intended to help you consider how these theoretical and historical issues relate to the role of artists and the arts in contemporary life, and how they might apply to your own community and your own involvement with the arts.
1 item
- Discussion Prompt: How can artists/arts organizations make an impact in your community?
FAQs
How It Works
Coursework
Each course is like an interactive textbook, featuring pre-recorded videos, quizzes and projects.
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Connect with thousands of other learners and debate ideas, discuss course material, and get help mastering concepts.
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Creators
Yale University
For more than 300 years, Yale University has inspired the minds that inspire the world. Based in New Haven, Connecticut, Yale brings people and ideas together for positive impact around the globe. A research university that focuses on students and encourages learning as an essential way of life, Yale is a place for connection, creativity, and innovation among cultures and across disciplines.
Pricing
| Audit | Purchase Course | |
|---|---|---|
| Access to course materials | Available | Available |
| Access to graded materials | Not available | Available |
| Receive a final grade | Not available | Available |
| Earn a shareable Course Certificate | Not available | Available |
Ratings and Reviews
The Course was very interesting to me. I have learned a lot particularly about the roots of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, which was not so clear to me.
"Harlem Nocturne" was a very interesting reading to me that tells the amazing story of three black woman artists in the 1940s and their impact on the American Civil Rights Movement by Black Power: young, gifted and black (Nina Simone).
"Art as Experience" by John Dewey is a very inspiring standard oeuvre about the function of art in a modern society. Art and culture are essential to the development of a peaceful way of living together based on respect and mutual understanding for each other within a society and more than that; this must be seen and explicitly recognized by politicians and politicians (John F. Kennedy).
The only thing that should be considered in the future is the extensive use of peer-graded-assignments as element in the weekly course reviews. This is critical to me because the participation in the weekly discussion forums was very limited.
Nevertheless, the course participation was all in all a pretty good learning experience.
I
It is a course at first somewhat complex, but then the ideas of great thinkers and participants of social action are unfolding through culture and music. The course is very complete and the way the teacher teaches is very wise. Very practical and useful for our social exercises. Thank you.
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A highly recommended course for humanity!!! High level of instruction in a way that everything that you think and write (for assignments) is always important. The readings will help you further understand yourself as a human and realize your role into your society. Thank you!!!