Geographies of American Popular Music: Introducing Students to Basic Geographic Concepts

ABSTRACT Popular music can be used to study many subjects and issues related to the social sciences. “Geographies of American Popular Music” was a workshop that not only examined the history and development of select genres of American music, it also introduced students to basic geographic concepts such as the culture hearth and spatial diffusion. Through a series of films, recordings, and readings, country, bluegrass, blues, rock-and-roll, jazz, and hip-hop were geographically studied, dissected, and discussed. Finally, a discography of American popular music was compiled by each student, which attempted to determine how America should be musically represented as a place.