About this site

Have you ever felt uncomfortable with, embarrassed by, left something less than satisfied by, deeply curious about, or excluded by Country Music? Do you love at least some country songs anyway? Have you also been inspired, consoled, or driven to kicking off your shoes throwin’ em on the floor and dancin’ in the kitchen till the mornin’ light by country music?

Well, come on in.

In this class (it’s not really a class, but we’re all gonna learn), our learning objectives will be:

1.        Country Music—and its supposedly working-class audience—is blacker, gayer, queerer, more feminine and smarter than its mainstream institutions or popular opinion would have you believe. Understanding country music requires critical approaches to overcome bullshit industry narratives.

2.        Country Music is defined as much as by its outlaws and fringe characters (Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, and their spiritual heirs) and counterpoints (Americana, Alternative Country) as its mainstream.

3.        Despite an apparently commitment to being real—“three chords and the truth”—or what some might call “authentic,” part of Country’s allure is actually revisionist, idealistic reimagining of deeply flawed spaces that allows its audience to find, in song, a “home” that does not really exist outside the listener’s mind.

About the Author

Jeremy S. Wade is a Writing Studies professor and lifelong Country fan whose research interests include the rhetoric of American music, antiracist pedagogy, and critical information literacy. He is more fun than those interests make him sound. In his previous lives, he’s worked in politics, government, bartending, Blockbuster Video, and even the Tastee Freez. He grew up near Lynchburg, Virginia and lives in Washington, D.C.

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