From left, Top Row: Catrina Muffoletto, James Cautillo, Alex Metz, Chris Denny, Andrew Gabriel, Will Lawler, Dr. Yates, and Pippa

Bottom Row: Jamie Noonan, Alyssa Reiff, Maureen McManus, Anna Thomas, Brittney Coyle, and Julie Fuentes

Not Pictured: Molly Hudish, Christine DelTufo, Eric Zarcone, and Rich Massina

In the Spring of 2010, the V-10 and V-11 "Leadership Experience" sections of the "Augustine and Culture Seminar" at Villanova University researched the origins and the development of American Popular Music in the second half of the 20th-century, that is, 1955-1995. At its core, the project is designed to develop solid research methodologies for the history, sociology and culture of Modernity and Post-Modernity.

The specific goal of this project is to present a coherent picture of the musical world that today's "traditional" American university students, most of whom were born ca. 1990, have inherited from the two generations immediately preceding them. 1995 was selected as a cut-off date that would ensure that the entire project would be historical for the researchers. 1955 was selected to represent the point at which the post-WWII prosperity boom began to provide large sections of the American population with the means (in both leisure time and disposable income) to generate and sustain “popular culture” as we know it today. Not coincidentally, it was about 1955 that the new musical genre of “Rock-n-Roll” first began to emerge from the roadhouses, bars, and clubs and go “mainstream” via radio, records, movies and television.

The instructor for these courses is Dr. Jonathan P. Yates