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This course will chart the rise of Aotearoa/NZ popular music from the Maori showbands of the 1950s through pop, rock, folk, reggae, punk, metal, hiphop, and EDM, and include examples from many of the subgenres hidden within those broad styles. The course readings will introduce students to key Cultural Studies concepts and theorists, all of which will be supported by texts and media from local music commentators. A key theme to be discussed will be the nation’s myth-making: that as Blam Blam Blam put it in 1981, ‘we have no racism / we have no sexism / there is no depression in New Zealand’. Taught on campus, and through distance learning, there will be 2 x two-hour workshops per week featuring music, videos, documentaries, and other cultural media, along with an online tutorial during which students will be encouraged to contribute media that relates to that week’s topic. As we move through the decades and genres, we will discuss the music in relation to the physical, social, and cultural context which produced it, with attention paid to political concerns such as Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the Dawn Raids, the 1981 Springbok Tour, gender, LGBTQIA+ rights, and our position as a Pacific Island nation in a region particularly vulnerable to the climate crisis. Students will be given the opportunity to further explore specialist music interests through the course assessments.