The 3-course, twelve credit hour Short Term Divisional Certificate in Music and Culture of the African Diaspora provides a solid primer on the origins and backgrounds of music and cultural practices that originated in Africa, and were developed in all regions of the Western world. The program begins with Music and Culture of the African Diaspora-Africa and Spain. This course will provide an introduction to the various music cultures of Africa. Beginning with an overview of the study of music in world cultures, ethnomusicology, we will progress to analyze the role of music in African cultures based on their religious beliefs and practices, technology, traditions, and attitudes towards change and innovation. Through selected readings, audio, video and interactive viewing and listening activities students will experience the historical, sociological and cultural processes through which African musical traditions began, grew and matured and flourished.

Students will then proceed to Music and Culture of the African Diaspora- The Northern Hemisphere, a focused examination of the history and current scholarship of African American music from the eighteenth through the twentieth century. This includes some of the following: African legacies, slave culture and religion, music in the early black church, folk traditions, spirituals, popular music, various composers, and especially the sociological implications of the development of protest music and its eventual evolution into Empowerment Songs. The course will utilize North American musical forms to explore sociological and artistic parallels, especially as they relate to the ability of a displaced people to use music and related art forms to resist abasement and oppression. This examination will employ Testifycation Theory as the basis of these explorations

The culminating and final course, Music and Culture of the African Diaspora- The Southern Hemisphere, will explore the richness and diversity of Latin American and Caribbean music, and facilitate an appreciation for the cultural connections arising from their African legacies, The course will utilize Caribbean musical forms to explore sociological and artistic parallels, slave culture and religion, and especially as they relate to the ability of a displaced people to use music and related art forms to resist abasement and oppression. This examination employs Testifycation Theory as the basis of these explorations.