American Popular Culture Commons^™

African-American Poetry, Music, And Politics, Tyler H. Macdonald

Honors Theses

The 2016 decision to award songwriter and musician Bob Dylan the Nobel Prize in Literature sparked a worldwide debate on the relationship between music and poetry and raised many questions about music’s place in literary canon. However, this debate is nothing new. Questions about the relationship between music and poetry have long been debated. Some scholars believe the two disciplines should be studied separately, while others prefer to consider the connections between the two.

My project begins with a question: if Bob Dylan’s songs can be considered poetry, what other forms of music might also be considered poetry? Rap implements …

From Woody Guthrie To The Big Muddy: The Evolution Of Political Music In America From World War I To The Late 1960s, Alexander B. Kouwenhoven

Honors Theses

Throughout the course of American history, music has served as a vital cultural mode for the expression and articulation of the collective American experience. Perhaps the most iconic connection between music and politics in American history occurred during the 1960s in the era of the counterculture and the Vietnam War. During this period, rock ‘n’ roll musicians became the figureheads for the Anti-War campaign and represented the political objectives of the New Left. However, the iconic status of these political musicians did not arise in a vacuum. These musicians, and their political importance in America can trace its origins to …