Topics in Sound Studies

Sound studies is a burgeoning interdisciplinary field that explores the question of how does listening to sound, beyond having a phone conversation or listening to your favorite tunes, influence culture, knowledge, and society by initiating dialogues across musicology, philosophy, cultural studies, disability studies, race and gender studies, and science and technology studies. In this course, students will examine three interrelated debates within the field: 1. the role of sound in understanding and uncovering historical and cultural knowledge; 2. the function of sound in the invention of media and technologies that have transformed listening culture; 3. the capacity of sound to shape social perceptions of race and gender. Reading texts that have revolutionized the way we think about sound, students will learn how sound and listening participated in historical and contemporary meaning-making.