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General Description:

Study to gain an overarching understanding of the role of the arts in society, especially the artist’s role as a catalyst in social change, through an interdisciplinary studies track that integrates the following four components:

(1) History or Cultural Studies from at least two different departments

(2) A rigorous study from an “Arts” department, in this case, music

(3) At least two ethics/religious components preferably from varied traditions

(4) At least two environmental science classes.

“I live to see the day when this world of black and white considers the possibilities of having different shades of grey.”
Dark City

ASC Links:

- Hip Hop and Social Change at the Field Museum, Chicago

- Hip Hop Press

- Local movements taking fruit

- The Circle – The Hip Hop Archive

- A page dedicated to Hip Hop for Social Change

- A website called Pioneers of Change contains a page called “Arts for Social Change”

- US: Mobilizing the Hip-Hop Generation by Jesse Alejandro Cottrell, WireTap

- Hip-hop Nation By Suzy Hansen, Salon

- Hip Hop as a Political Tool By Yvonne Bynoe, AlterNet

Freshly Prepared
May 7, 2007

Jinlee Daewha (Truthful Conversation)

April 28, 2007
5 PM
Lion’s Pause

Program
1. Invitation
2. Narrative
3. Dialogue
4. Song
5. Farewell

Musicians
Flute – Sara Perelli-Minetti
Tuba – Drew Sherman
Oboe – Bridie Goodwin
Percussion – Amanda Thorstad
Clarinet – Whit Noble
Violin – Rachel Nesvig, Hanna Reitz
Bassoon – Ben Wareham
Viola – Laura Groggel, Jeff Neil
Trumpet – Jacob Dalager
Cello – Kirsten Peterson
French Horn – Chloe Refling
Bass – Eric Graalum, Kale Olsen-Reed
Trombone – Grant Randall
Keyboard – Tom Franek
Drum Set – John Hess

Program Notes
The Arts for Social Change major aims to incorporate a few disciplines; namely history/cultural studies, a rigorous “arts” study, environmental science, and ethics/religion to gain an integrative understanding the culture and history of the past, and present. It will help students gain urgency for the need for social change, encouraging what St. Olaf College coins, “a global perspective... focuses on what is ultimately worthwhile and fosters the development of the whole person in mind, body and spirit” (St. Olaf Mission Statement) so that this major, in conjunction with the goals of the college, foster the students discovering a calling and a vocation which contribute to humanity’s strive for peace, sustainability, and “shalom”.

Often a reflection of the sentiments of the times, the arts have continuously played an idealistic role within the spectrum of liberal arts and the greater society. Mozart composed operas that were embedded with, what was then forbidden, support of the Italian revolution, and Hermann Hesse wrote of a modern man’s struggle to retain the human insight to do what is morally and ethically right although social conditions proved otherwise – the tragedy of the first World War – in his novel Demian. The above-mentioned art was possible because the creators had a well of integrated knowledge that allowed them to evaluate society and the state of their living environment. To put it in analogy, if the arts were a fire, integrated knowledge of society and various disciplines are the fuel that sustains the flame.

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