Decolonizing “Intro to World Music?â€
Abstract
Where does “Intro to World Music†stand in an era of political crisis, globalization, and technological (post)modernity, when relations between self and other are in constant flux? In this article, I critique the colonial underpinnings of “Intro to World Music†while arguing that a recuperated curricular framework can engage students in decolonial praxis via a focus on conversations about self and other. Within such a framework, students can develop a resistance to Eurocentric thinking, and instructors can facilitate encounters with “others†in the context of experiential learning projects. In this way, the teaching strategies I describe may help students move beyond a cultivation of oppositional or analogous thinking about culture (here is how “they†are different from or similar to “usâ€) to an aspiration toward relational thinking about cultural difference that is other-centered, rather than self-centered.
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