Andrew Lindsay

“Genre” and tradition in music are nebulous terms, yet we can’t escape them. Examining these genre distinctions consistently reveals two things - the history and tradition that helped birth the genre “category,” and the web of influences between genres that make such distinctions unstable. Nowhere is this “instability” more apparent than in American music, a country whose relatively young socio-political history makes the notion of “tradition” especially complicated. “Americana” is an overarching term to describe a variety of American musics, in an attempt to smooth over some of the complicated relationship between genre and tradition. One thing we will explore in this course is the effectiveness of that endeavor. Complicated spaces, of course, are fertile ground for argument, and that is the primary skill we will practice in this course. We begin with short writing assignments that force students to make arguments about our texts. Our class discussion allows us to workshop these claims, and we write larger papers that demonstrate the ability to take greater risks with our theses. In this course we will focus on the core skills of reading and writing, preparing us for all our future coursework at SAIC. Students learn to make nuanced observations about the texts we study, observations which form the basis for the argumentative papers we write. This course will focus on artists representative of the various genres said to populate Americana music. Special attention, however, will be paid to those artists who trouble the genre definitions, such as the Staple Singers, Gillian Welch, and Sturgill Simpson. Assignments consist of informal, observational journals, short papers and a larger Final Paper at the end of the course.

This course will trace the development of the modern short story, focusing primarily on the 20th century. There are three goals of this course. First, we will look closely at the form of the short story - the tools an author has at his/her disposal. Second, we will examine the innovations that occurred in the 20th century. And finally - through in-class discussion and workshop - we will focus on the craft of paper-writing. Through repetition of short writing exercises, we aim to make the basic structure of academic writing second-nature. We will also learn the art of thesis-writing - translating our general observations of the short-story form into unique and penetrating arguments. In this course we will focus on the core skills of reading and writing, preparing us for all our future coursework at SAIC. Students learn to make nuanced observations about the texts we study, observations which form the basis for the argumentative papers we write. This course begins with Anton Chekhov but focuses mainly on 20th century American authors. Authors include Zora Neale Hurston, Ernest Hemingway, Flannery O?Connor, Katherine Mansfield, Sherwood Anderson and Donald Barthelme. Assignments consist of informal, observational journals, short papers and a larger Final Paper at the end of the course.

This course proposes that hip-hop is the most literary of all musical genres. We understand hip-hop best when we apply the same critical questions to these songs that we apply to short fiction, autobiography, and other literary genres. Our fundamental goal is to see the ?art? of hip-hop more clearly. Good observation leads to good argument, and at heart, this is the fundamental skill we will be practicing. Personal taste in music is an extraordinarily subjective position and often involves unconscious preferences and inclinations. Discovering why we feel the way we feel, and learning how to argue for something ?unprovable? is the fundamental goal of rhetoric; in doing so we aim to strengthen our writing skills across all subject matter.