EGL 406 - Sr. Seminar (Spring): “Hitsville, Abbey Road, and Paisley Park: the Beatles and African-American Music”

Course Units: 1

The Beatles are generally considered the most important band of the rock era. Their influence has been profound and long-lasting, not just in terms of music but also in a broader cultural context, in art, fashion, style, gender and sexuality, and politics. Thus, studying the Beatles raises important questions about the role of artists in shaping or reshaping culture. But the Beatles were the first to admit their huge debt to African-American music and cultural expression, a debt that raises important and timely questions about cultural influence and appropriation. Did the Beatles appropriate African-American culture or were they, as John Lennon once said, “making love with it”? Such questions are compounded and made more interesting by the Beatles’ own influence on African-American cultural expression, in artists ranging from Jimi Hendrix to George Clinton to Prince to Drake. Prerequisite(s): Two 100-level and four 200-level English courses CC: HUL, HUM, WS