Project will serve as a pilot for new, interdisciplinary model of learning within Honors program
Belmont University has received a nearly $150,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to fund an interdisciplinary project examining the shifting notions of the sacred within Americana music over the past several decades. The project, titled “A Model for Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Humanities Research: Redefining the Sacred in Americana Music,” will serve as a pilot for collaborative project-based undergraduate research in Belmont’s Global Honors program.
Relevant courses will explore the intersections of roots music genres including folk, country, rock and blues, and investigate how Americana musicians have engaged rhetoric, argument, spiritual themes and social context with the shifting religious identities of Americans. The effort will be spearheaded by Dr. Sarah Blomeley and Dr. Donovan McAbee.
The project will take the form of a two-course sequence taught throughout the 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 academic years as part of Belmont’s Honors Scholars’ Collaborative program.
The first course centers around students using rhetorical theory to analyze Americana song lyrics, conducting archival research at the Country Music Hall of Fame and interviewing key figures in the genre. In the second course, students will create a public-facing podcast with accompanying web resources. Each sequence will feature 15 students, resulting in a 30-episode podcast series by the conclusion of the two-year program.
"Through a blend of rhetoric, religion, melody and history, our project seeks to explore the often overlooked yet profound inquires of Americana music,” said Blomeley. “What does it reveal about American identity and religious beliefs? Where lies the boundary between sacred and profane in Americana's narrative? Ultimately, our aim is to delve into Americana music's role as a conduit for American religious discourse."
In addition to utilizing resources such as the Country Music Hall of Fame archives, students will receive instruction from the likes of Grammy award-winner Tammy Rogers King and Grammy-nominated folk artist Mary Gauthier, Relationary Marketing’s Clark Buckner and other notable Belmont faculty members. The resulting podcast and web guides aim to serve as accessible, educational resources while modeling revolutionary experiential learning at Belmont.
By leveraging Belmont's institutional strengths in music and entertainment, the humanities and religious studies, this project aims to create a model for immersive interdisciplinary learning experiences.
The project's findings will be shared through a publicly available podcast series, archival interviews, academic presentations by the faculty leaders and potentially published research articles. Beta testing this collaborative, project-based approach to undergraduate research seeks to establish a scalable framework for similar initiatives in the future.