This seminar is a historical and theoretical inquiry into the construction and reflection of identities in popular music and by popular music performers, audiences, and discourses. Using readings and examples from both Western and Non-Western popular musics we will pay particular attention to race, sexuality, gender, class, and how they intersect with and inform various genres, styles, formal characteristics, and issues surrounding musical production, technology, and dissemination. Musical identities of local and global location, scenes, and subcultures will also be discussed. Theoretical and interpretive approaches to be introduced and discussed include deconstruction, performance and reception theory and various aspects of postmodern and post-colonial theory.