Course Description
An intermediate/advanced media theory course based on my new book There is No Soundtrack: Rethinking Art, Media, and the Audio-Visual Contract. This course explores unique and challenging audio-visual relationships found in experimental media art.  Additionally, it argues for diversity within the emerging field of sound studies, as well as in art history and criticism, media and cinema studies, and other fields within the human sciences.  This course engages students in examination of broad topics in sound, including silence, voice, listening, noise, and the soundscape via specific case studies including voiceover in avant-garde and ethnographic film, the history of racialized violence in the U.S., acoustic architecture, and site-specific sound installations, to name a few. This course complements the other courses I teach on sound and media, including MS52: Introduction to Sound Studies and MS114: Film Sound.

In this class, specific case studies presented in each chapter of There is No Soundtrack are examined in depth through their supporting texts and diverse media objects in the form of post-1960 performance, installation, sculpture, drawing, video art, avant-garde film, media projection, field recordings, and community-based art practice.  Students will explore key concepts and debates in sound studies as well as interdisciplinary scholarship and praxis on ethnography, historical research, racism, institutional critique, and site-specificity. This class encourages a critical, creative approach, non-traditional solutions, and awareness of both historical contexts and theoretical frameworks. 

This course fulfills the media theory requirement for the Intercollegiate Media Studies (IMS) major and minor. Prerequisite: MS49, 50, 51, or 52; or other relevant introductory courses, such as in musicology, gender and feminist studies, ethnic studies, and cultural studies. Students taking this course should ideally have a background in media analysis, critical theory, and other forms of interdisciplinary exploration.
 

Statement of Student Learning Outcome
By the end of this course, students ideally are expected:

• To develop an understanding of the relationships between sound culture and media art, as well as the larger implications of this understanding. 
• To cultivate critical awareness of issues of diversity, intercultural understanding, and other relationships of power in sound studies, media studies, art criticism, and other related fields;
• To develop a working knowledge of major sound theories;
• To acquire skills in analyzing a wide variety of audio-visual media, including film, video, sound recording, media installation, performance, and other forms;
• To be able to discuss and convey the above-mentioned knowledge and skills in critical written arguments, oral presentations and discussions, as well as in other formats;
• To be able to work and learn in both individual and group contexts.

   

Course Organization
Class meetings will take place on Tuesdays and Thursdays 11:00am-12:15pm PST. Tuesday classes are normally comprised of a lecture and media presentation. You need to complete all of your readings for the week by class on Tuesday. Thursday classes are normally reserved for discussion of the readings, media, and other relevant class topics. There is ample time allotted to discuss the readings and other course material. During the COVID-19 pandemic, some accommodations can be made (e.g. attending class on Zoom), within reason, for testing, quarantine, and other health-related issues.

You are required to help frame at least part of the discussion on Thursday by posting 2-3 discussion questions or prompts (see below) to Sakai by Wednesday night. Asynchronous discussion of these questions can take place on Sakai forums before and after the class discussion, which should focus the important questions and discourses for the class.

Attendance is mandatory at all sessions every week. Field trips will not take place during the pandemic. Selected guest speakers (sound and media artists, musicians, performers, curators, scholars, etc.) may join us remotely via Zoom, schedule and budget permitting, depending on level of interest expressed and their availability. I may assign events (required or recommended) outside of the class meeting time, and will try my best to balance out in both synchronous and asynchronous class time.

Laptop computers with an internet connection and appropriate software, sometimes smart phones and other mobile digital devices can be used in class only for class-related activities (e.g. taking notes or relevant web searches). I ask students to agree to these conditions for class: no emails, texting, messaging, checking your social media accounts and other non-class related activities on your device. These and other diversions are not acceptable during class time, and will lower your grade.

Attendance
Attendance and participation of all classes is required. Do not miss class or arrive late!Two absences are permitted without impacting your final grade, while each additional absence will discount your total grade percentage by one (1) point. Absences must be cleared by me before or after (in case of emergencies only) the class you missed in order for it to not affect your final grade. Attendance is determined by when I take roll.

Class Participation
Your active, well-prepared participation in class discussions is essential to creating a dynamic (i.e. not boring!) learning environment. Although you will not receive a letter grade for class participation, it will figure into your final grade based on my observations.

We may study sexually explicit, political, and otherwise challenging material in this course. These are not included for shock value, but are legitimate investigations of controversial subject matters in media. You are certainly encouraged to explore difficult and complex subject matters in your work, and you should be prepared to consider these issues intellectually, emotionally, and with responsibility. Our class is a safe space in which students can express their beliefs and opinions within the context of the course material. You always have a voice, but please be respectful of others as well. Abusive language and behavior are not tolerated. Open-mindedness is encouraged!

Class Assignments & Discussion Question / Prompts
There are three assignments for the course, one per section corresponding to a chapter in There is No Soundtrack, with one section off. Assignments are due one week after each section ends:

Unless an extension is approved by myself in advance of the due date, your grade is reduced by one letter grade (i.e. B to C) per class day your project is late. You are encouraged to meet with me individually during my office hours to discuss your assignments, your grades, and your overall performance in class. I am always open to suggestions and feedback!

Reading Assignments
You should complete all the reading assignments by the Tuesday of the week when they are assigned. Please purchase the required textbook. Required readings, when selected from optional textbooks, will be posted on Sakai. Reading assignments are drawn from the following texts:

Required Textbook (Please purchase at the Huntley Bookstore)
Ming-Yuen S. Ma, There is No Soundtrack: Rethinking Art, Media, and the Audio-Visual Contract, Manchester: University of Manchester Press, 2020.

Optional Textbooks (Required readings from these books are available as ebooks through Claremont Colleges Library. If they are not available as ebooks, they will be posted on Sakai.)
Rick Altman, editor, Sound Theory Sound Practice. New York: Routledge, 1992. (ebook available)
---, Silent Film Sound (Film and Culture Series). New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. (ebook available)
Jacques Attali. Noise: The Political Economy of Music. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2002.
Jean-Francois Augoyard & Henry Torgue. eds. Sonic Experience: A Guide To Everyday Sounds. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2006. (ebook available)
Janet Bergstrom, ed., Endless Nights: Cinema and Psychoanalysis, Parallel Histories. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. (ebook available)
Michael Bull. Sound Moves: iPod Culture and Urban Experience. New York: Routledge, 2007.
Adriana Cavarero. For More Than One Voice: Towards a Philosophy of Vocal Expression. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005. (ebook available)
Michel Chion, Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen. trans. Claudia Gorbman, New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. (ebook available)
---, The Voice in Cinema. trans. Claudia Gorbman, New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. (ebook available)
Christoph Cox & Daniel Warren, eds., Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music, London: Continuum, 2004.
Angela Davis, Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday. New York: Pantheon Books, 1998. (ebook available)
Stefan Helmreich. Sounding The Limits of Life: Essays in the Anthropology of Biology and Beyond. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016. (ebook available)
Don Ihde, Listening and Voice: Phenomenologies of Sound, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press; 1976. (ebook available)
Caleb Kelly, ed., Sound, Documents of Contemporary Art Series, London/Cambridge, MA: Whitechapel Gallery/MIT Press, 2011.
Ming-Yuen S. Ma & Erika Suderburg, eds., Resolutions 3: Global Networks of Video. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012. (ebook available)
John Mowitt. Sounds: The Ambient Humanities. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2015. (ebook available)
David Novak & Matt Sakakeeny. eds. Keywords in Sound. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2015. (ebook available)
Catherine Russell. Experimental Ethnography: The Work of Film in the Age of Video. Durham: Duke University Press, 1999. (ebook available)
Michael Sappol. A Traffic of Dead Bodies: Anatomy and Embodied Social Identity in Nineteenth-Century America. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002. (ebook available)
R. Murray Schafer. The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World. Rochester, VT: Destiny Books, 1977. (ebook available)
Kaja Silverman. The Acoustic Mirror; The Female Voice in Psychoanalysis and Cinema. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988. (ebook available)
Jonathan Sterne. The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003. (ebook available)
Emily Thompson, The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America (1900-1933). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004. (ebook available)
Marie Thompson. Beyond Unwanted Sound: Noise, Affect, and Aesthetic Moralism. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017.
Trinh T. Minh-ha. Framer Framed. New York: Routledge, 1992. (ebook available)
Elisabeth Weis and John Belton. eds. Film Sound: Theory and Practice. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985.

Additional References (A good place to start your research projects!)
G. Douglas Barrett. After Sound: Toward a Critical Music. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.
Jay Beck & Tony Grajeda. eds. Lowering The Boom: Critical Studies in Film Sound. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2008.
Karin Bijsterveld. Mechanical Sound: Technology, Culture, and Public Problems of Noise in the Twentieth Century (Inside Technology). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008.
---, & Trevor Pinch, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies, New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Barry Blesser & Linda-Ruth Salter. Spaces Speak, Are You Listening? Experiencing Aural Architecture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006.
Michael Bull. Sirens. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020.
---, & Les Back, eds., The Auditory Culture Reader (Sensory Formations), London: Berg Publishers, 2004.
John Cage. Silence: Lectures and Writings, Middleton, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1961.
Michel Chion. Sound: An Acoulogical Treatise. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016.
---, Film, A Sound Art (Film and Culture Series). New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.
Seth Kim-Cohen. Against Ambience and Other Essays. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.
---, In the Blink of an Ear: Toward a Non-Cochlear Sonic Art. New York: Continuum, 2009.
Steven Connor. Beyond Words: Sobs, Hums, Stutters and Other Vocalizations. London; Reaktion Books, 2014.
Donald Crafton. The Talkies: American Cinema's Transition to Sound, 1926-1931. History of The American Cinema, Vol. 4, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1997.
Mladen Dolar. A Voice and Nothing More. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006.
Leslie C. Dunn, and Nancy C. Jones. eds. Embodied Voices: Representing Female Vocality in Western Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Frances Dyson. The Tone of Our Times: Sound, Sense, Economy , and Ecology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2014.
---, Sounding New Media: Immersion and Embodiment in the Arts and Culture. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 2009.
Nina Sun Eidsheim. The Race of Sound: Listening, Timbre, and Vocality in African American Music. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2019.
---, & Katherine Meizel. eds. The Oxford Handbook of Voice Studies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019 .
---, Sensing Sound: Singing and Listening as Vibrational Practice. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2015
Veit Erlmann. Reason and Resonance: A History of Modern Aurality. New York: Zone Books, 2010.
--- ed., Hearing Cultures: Essays on Sound, Listening and Modernity. London: Berg Publishers, 2004.
Scott Eyman, The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution 1926-1930. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997.
Robert Wallace Fink, Melinda Latour, Zachary Wallmark. eds. The Relentless Pursuit of Tone: Timbre in Popular Music. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2018.
Ana Maria Ochoa Gautier. Aurality: Listening and Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Colombia. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014.
Steve Goodman. Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012.
Simon Frith & Andrew Goodwin, eds. On Record: Rock, Pop, and the Written Word. New York: Pantheon Books, 1990.
Claudia Gorbman, Unheard Melodies: Narrative Film Music. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.
Greg Hainge. Noise Matters: Towards an Ontology of Noise. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013.
Paul Hegarty, Rumour and Radiation: Sound in Video Art. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014.
---, Noise Music: A History. London: Continuum, 2007.
Stefan Helmreich. Alien Ocean: Anthropological Voyages in Microbial Seas. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2009.
Charles Hirschkind, The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2006.
Yael Kaduri. The Oxford Handbook of Sound and Image in Western Art. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Lilya Kaganovsky & Masha Salazkina, eds. Sound, Speech, Music in Soviet and Post-Soviet Cinema. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2014
Douglas Kahn. Earth Sound Earth Signal: Energies and Earth Magnitude in The Arts. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013.
---, Noise, Water, Meat: A History of Sound in the Arts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001.
Kathryn Kalinak. Settling The Score: Music and The Classical Hollywood Film. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992.
Brian Kane, Sound Unseen: Acousmatic Sound in Theory and Practice. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Anahid Kassabian, Ubiquitous Listening: Affect, Attention, and Disturbed Subjectivity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013
---, Hearing Film: Tracking Identifications in Contemporary Hollywood Film Music, New York: Routledge, 2000.
Michael C. Keith. Radio Cultures: The Sound Medium in American Life. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2008.
Caleb Kelly. Gallery Sound. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017.
---, Cracked Media: The Sound of Malfunction. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009.
Friedrich A. Kittler, Gramophone, Film, Typewriter. trans. Geoffrey Winthrop-Young & Michael Wutz, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999.
Dan Lander and Micah Lexier, eds.,  Sound by Artists. Toronto and Banff: Art Metropole/Walter Philips Gallery, 1990.
James Lastra, Sound Technology and the American Cinema: Perception, Representation, Modernity. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000.
Amy Lawrence, Echo and Narcissus: Women’s Voices in Classical Hollywood Cinema. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.
Brandon LaBelle, Sonic Agency: Sound and Emergent Forms of Resistance. London; Goldsmiths Press, 2018.
---, Lexicon of the Mouth: Poetics and Politics of Voice and the Oral Imagination. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014.
---, Acoustic Territories: Sound Culture and Everyday Life. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2010.
---. Background Noise: Perspectives on Sound Art. London: Continuum, 2006.
Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith, Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 1991.
Alan Licht, Sound Art: Beyond Music, Between Categories, New York: Rizzoli, 2007.
Paul D. Miller, Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008.
David Morton, Off the Record: The Technology and Culture of Sound Recording in America, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2000.
Jean Luc Nancy. Listening. Charlotte Mandell, trans., New York: Fordham University Press, 2007.
David Novak. Japanoise: Music at the Edge of Circulation. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013.
Walter J. Ong. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. New York: Routledge, 1991.
Dominic Pettman. Sonic Intimacy: Voice, Species, Technics (or, How to Listen to the World). Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 2017.
Dylan Robinson. Hungry Listening: Resonant Theory for Indigenous Sound Studies. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2020
Tara Rodgers, ed. Pink Noises: Women on Electronic Music and Sound. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010.
Holly Rogers. eds. (with Jeremy Barham) The Music and Sound of Experimental Film. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2017.
---, ed. Music and Sound in Documentary Film. New York: Routledge, 2015.
---, Sounding the Gallery: Video and the Rise of Art-Music. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013.
Tricia Rose. Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. Middleton, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1994.
Leigh Eric Schmidt. Hearing Things: Religion, Illusion and the American Enlightenment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.
David Schwarz. Listening Subjects: Music, Psychoanalysis, Culture. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997.
Hillel Schwartz. Making Noise: From Babel to The Big Bang and Beyond. Cambridge, MA: Zone Books, 2011.
Mary Ann Smart. ed. Siren Songs: Representations of Gender and Sexuality in Opera. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000.
Jacob Smith. Vocal Tracks: Performance and Sound Media. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 2008.
Mark M. Smith. Sensing the Past: Seeing, Hearing, Smelling, Tasting, and Touching in History. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 2007.
---, Listening to Nineteenth-Century America. Chapel Hill, NC: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2001.
---, ed., Hearing History: A Reader, Athens: Georgia University Press, 2004.
Jonathan Sterne. MP3: The Meaning of a Format (Sign, Storage, Transmission), Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012.
---, ed., The Sound Studies Reader, New York: Routledge, 2012
Jennifer Lynn Stoever. The Sonic Color Line: Race and the Cultural Politics of Listening. New York: NYU Press, 2016.
Peter Szendy, Listen: A History of Our Ears. New York: Fordham University Press, 2007.
Michael Taussig, Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses. New York: Routledge, 1993.
Timothy Taylor, Strange Sounds: Music, Technology and Culture. New York: Routledge, 2001.
Gary Tomlinson. The Singing of the New World: Indigenous Voice in the Era of European Contact. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007.
David Toop. Sinister Resonance: The Mediumship of the Listener. London: Continuum, 2010.
Steve Waksman. Instruments of Desire: The Electric Guitar and the Shaping of Musical Experience. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1999.
Alexander G. Weheliye. Phonographies: Groves in Sonic Afro-Modernity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005.

* Your general performance in class including participation, attendance, and punctuality, except in the special cases listed above, such as if you have more than 3 unexcused absences.

Generally, outstanding ('A') students in this class have good attendance and completed all their assignments on time. They are consistently well prepared for class, and actively participate in and advance our discussions with pertinent information, questions, and observations. Their work demonstrate their ability to innovate and respond to the topic at hand, awareness of the issues addressed by and the historical context for the media works and genres they are referencing, as well as their ability to articulate their observations and analyses in a clear and concise manner. Only letter grades are given out in this class.

Academic Accommodations
If you have a disability for which you are or may be requesting an accommodation, you are encouraged to contact both your faculty and the academic support service of your home campus by email at the beginning of the semester if you have not already registered for accommodations. A student’s home campus is responsible for establishing and providing accommodations. You must contact your home institution to establish accommodations. Below is a list of who to contact: 

Claremont Graduate University: disabilityservices@cgu.edu
Claremont McKenna: accessibilityservices@cmc.edu
Harvey Mudd College: access@g.hmc.edu
Keck Graduate University: student.accessibility@kgi.edu
Pitzer College: academicsupport@pitzer.edu
Pomona College: disabilityservices@pomona.edu
Scripps College: ars@scrippscollege.edu

Academic Honesty
Academic dishonesty in any form -- including the representation of someone else's work as your own, the destruction or malicious alteration of the work of others, the re-use of work prepared for another course, and so on -- will be subject to the most severe penalties permitted under your school's student code.

Extra credit - Students are encouraged to attend relevant programs (e.g. performances, lectures, conferences, exhibitions, podcasts, instagram live events, etc.) remotely and write a (1-2 page, typed and double-space) report of the event or activity for extra credit. Incorporate the event's relevance to the class as well as your personal responses to it. Students are allowed two extra credit posts. Announcements for events of interest to this class are done in the first 5 mins. of each class. Web links can also be posted to the online syllabus (by instructor) and to the class Sakai forum (by all class members).

Questions About Grading
I try my best to make my grading criteria as clear as possible, and you are welcome to come and discuss your grades and your class performance with me. However, I only consider legitimate concerns, and be aware that your grade is as likely to go down as it is to go up after I reassess your assignment. I do not tolerate haggling, bribing, threats, and any other pointless arguments. I consider all aspects of your performance before I assign a grade, please respect my assessment as I respect your efforts.

Course Schedule:

Week 1: Class Introduction, Film without Images
Tuesday 1.18

Required Reading
There is No Soundtrack, pp. xix-xxxv

Additional Reading
Herman Asselberghs & Jasmine Van Pee. "Beyond the Appearance of Imagelessness: Preliminary Notes on Zen for Film's Enchanted Materialism". Afterall: A Journal of Art, Context, Inquiry. 22 (Autumn/Winter 2009) pp. 5-15.
Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller. The Murder of Crows. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2011.
Tina Rigby Hanssen. "The Whispering Voice: Materiality , Aural Qualities and the Reconstruction of Memories in the Works of Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller." Music, Sound, and the Moving Image. Vol. 4, No. 1 (Spring 2010) pp. 39-54.
Hanna Hölling. Paik's Virtual Archive: Time, Change, and Material in Media Art. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2017, Ch. 4 & 7.
Jacques Khalip. "The Archeology of Sound: Derek Jarman's Blue and Queer Audiovisuality in the Time of AIDS." Difference: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies. 21:4 (September 2010) pp. 73-108.
Peter Wollen. "Blue." New Left Review. 6 (November/December 2000) pp. 120-133.

PPT Week 1

I. INTRODUCTION
Week 2: Rethinking the Audio-Visual Contract
Tuesday 1.25

Thursday 1.27

Required Reading
There is No Soundtrack, pp. 1-26.
Michel Chion, Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen, pp. xxv-xxvii, 39-40, 63-64, 67-69, 222.
Don Ihde, Listening and Voice, pp. 3-15.
John Mowitt, Sound: The Ambient Humanities, pp. 8-13.
Max Neuhaus, "Sound Art?" in Sound, Caleb Kelly, ed., pp. 72-73
Gustavus Stadler, "On Whiteness and Sound Studies," Sounding Out! (July 6, 2015)

Additional Reading
G. Douglas Barrett, After Sound, pp. 1-15.
Michael Bull & Les Back, The Auditory Culture Reader, pp. 1-18.
Michel Chion, Audio-Vision, pp. 1-137
---, Sound: An Acoulogical Treatise
Steve Connor, "Ears Have Walls: On Hearing Art," in Sound, Caleb Kelly, ed., pp. 129-130.
Michele Hilmes, "Is There a Field Called Sound Cultural Studies? And Does it Matter?" American Quarterly, 57:1 (March 2005) pp. 249-259.
Brian Kane, “Musicophobia, or Sound Art and the Demands of Art Theory,” Nonsite.org, No. 8 (2013) January 20, 2013.
Laura Marks. Touch: Sensuous Theory and Multisensory Media. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002.
Irene Noy, Emergency Noises Introduction, Ch. 1 & 2.
David Novak & Matt Sakakeeny, Keywords in Sound, pp. 1-11.
Ana Maria Ochoa, Aurality, pp. 1-29.
Jonathan Sterne, The Audible Past, pp. 1-29.
---, "Sonic Imaginations," The Sound Studies Reader, pp. 1-17.
Jennifer Stoever, The Sonic Color Line, pp. 1-28.

PPT Week 2

Tuesday 2.1

Please watch at least one of these feature-length films this week. We will discuss both, along with another feature-length film next week.

Thursday 2.3

Required Reading
Michel Chion, The Voice in Cinema, pp. 17-29, 125-151.
Mary Ann Doane, "The Voice in Cinema: The Articulation of Body and Space," in Film Sound, pp. 162-176.
Amanda Weidman,"Voice," in Keywords in Sound, pp. 232-245.

Additional Reading
Rick Altman, Silent Film Sound, Ch. 4 & 8
Pascal Bonitzer, "Les silences de la voix," Cahiers du Cinéma. 256 (February-March 1975)
Michel Chion, The Voice in Cinema, pp. 1-13, 31-73.
Steven Connor, Dumbstruck: A Cultural History of Ventriloquism.
Jacques Derrida, "The Voice That Keeps Silence," in The Sound Studies Reader, pp. 495-503
Mladen Dolar, A Voice and Nothing More, Introduction & Ch. 2.
Brandon LaBelle, Lexicon of the Mouth, pp.45-60.
Françoise Lionnet. Autobiographical Voices: Race, Gender, Self-Portraiture. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989, Ch. 3.
Jose Esteban Munoz. Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999, Ch. 3.
Mary Louise Pratt. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. London: Routledge, 2007.
Kaja Silverman, The Acoustic Mirror, Ch. 2 & 3.

Tuesday 2.8

Thursday 2.10
Please watch either the Akerman or Marker - whichever you did not watch last week, plus Surname Viet Given Name Nam. All are feature-length so plan your time accordingly!

Required Reading
Janet Bergstrom, “Chantal Akerman: Splitting,” in Endless Nights, pp. 273-290.
Catherine Russell. Experimental Ethnography, pp. 275-314. (read pp. 275-281, 301-314, skim the rest)
Kaja Silverman, The Acoustic Mirror, pp. 42-71
Trinh T. Minh-ha. Film script for Surname Viet Given Name Nam, in Framer Framed, pp. 49-91.

Additional Reading
André Bazin, "Bazin on Marker," (trans.) Dave Kehr, Film Comment, 39:4 (July/August 2003)
Stella Bruzzi. New Documentary: A Critical Introduction. London: Routledge, 2000.
Timothy Corrigan. The Essay Film: From Montaigne, After Marker. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Peter X. Feng. Identities in Motion: Asian American Film and Video. Durham: Duke University Press, 2002, Ch. 8.
---, ed., Screening Asian Americans. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2002.
Paul Hegarty, “Grid Intensities: Hearing Structures in Chantal Akerman’s Films of the 1970s,” in The Music and Sound in Experimental Film, pp.149-166.
Catherine Lupton. Chris Marker: Memories of the Future. London: Reaktion Books, 2005.
Cybelle H. McFadden. Gendered frames, embodied cameras: Varda, Akerman, Cabrera, Calle, and Maïwenn. Plymouth: Fairleigh Dickson University Press, 2014.
Orlene Denice McMahon. “Reinventing the Documentary: The Early Essay Film Soundtracks of Chris Marker,” in Music and Sound in Documentary Film, pp. 86-103.
Glenn M. Mimura. Ghostlife of Third Cinema: Asian American Film and Video. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009, Ch. 3.
Joanne Morra. "Daughter's Tongue: The Intimate Distance of Translation," Journal of Visual Culture, 6:1 (2007) pp. 91-108.
Linda Peckham. "Surname Viet Given Name Nam: Spreading Rumors and Ex/Changing Histories," in Screening Asian Americans, pp. 238-241.
Marion Schmid. Chantal Akerman. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010.
Kaja Silverman, The Threshold of the Visible World. New York: Routledge, 1996, pp. 185-193.
Trinh T. Minh-ha (interviews) "From A Hybrid Place," with Judith Mayne, pp. 144-147; "'Why A Fish Pond?' Fiction at the Heart of Documentary" with Laleen Jayamane and Anne Rutherford, pp. 164-178; "'Who is Speaking?' Of Nation, Community and First-Person Interviews," pp. 197-210; all in Framer Framed.
Kaja Silverman, The Acoustic Mirror, pp. 72-100.

PPT Week 4

Week 5: Performing Autoethnography
Tuesday 2.15

Thursday 2.17

Required Reading
There is No Soundtrack, pp. 27-65.
Adriana Cavarero, For More Than One Voice, pp. 1-16.

Additional Reading
Rick Altman, Silent Film Sound, pp. 293-318.
Nina Sun Eidsheim, Sensing Sound, Introduction, Ch. 5.
Tricia Rose, Black Noise, Ch. 3.
Jacob Smith, Vocal Tracks, Ch. 4.
Alexander Weheliye, Phonographies, Ch. 2.

PPT Week 5

III. HISTORY, NOISE, VIOLENCE
Week 6: Racialized Violence and the Problem of Visuality
Tuesday 2.22

Thursday 2.24

Required Reading
There is No Soundtrack, pp. 67-120.
Jean-Francois Augoyard & Henry Torgue. eds. Sonic Experience, pp. 99-116.

Additional Reading
Adriana Cavarero, For More Than One Voice, Ch. 3.1, 3.2.
Veit Erlmann, Reason and Resonance, Introduction.
---, "Resonance," in Keywords in Sound, pp. 175-183.
Russell Ferguson et al, Christian Marclay, Los Angeles: UCLA Hammer Museum, 2003.
Jennifer Gonzàlez et al, Christian Marclay. London: Phaidon, 2005.
Ken Gonzales-Day. "From Postcards to Plaster Casts: The Image of Lynching in Kienholz's Five Car Stud," Art Journal, 71:1 (Spring 2012) pp. 120-125.
Helen Langa. "Two Antilynching Art Exhibitions: Politicized Viewpoints, Racial Perspectives, Gendered Constraints," American Art (Spring 1999) pp. 10-39.
Mark M. Smith, ed., Hearing History: A Reader,
---, "Echo," in Keywords in Sound, pp. 15-64.
Jonathan Sterne. The Audible Past, Introduction, Ch. 1.
Jennifer Lynn Stoever. The Sonic Color Line, Ch. 4.
Steve Waksman. Instruments of Desire, Introduction, Ch. 2, 4, 5.
Robyn Wiegman, American Anatomies: Theorizing Race and Gender. Durham; Duke University Press, 1995, Ch. 1 & 3.

PPT Week 6

Week 7: Noises of Protest
Tuesday 3.1

Thursday 3.3

Required Reading
Jacques Attali. Noise, pp. 3-12, 18-31
Angela Davis, Blues Legacies and Black Feminism, pp. 209-226.
Luigi Russolo, "The Art of Noises: Futurist Manifesto," in Audio Culture, pp. 10-14.
Marie Thompson, Beyond Unwanted Sound, pp. 1-15.

Additional Reading
Jacques Attali. Noise.
Roland Barthes, "The Grain of the Voice," in Simon Frith & Andrew Goodwin, eds. On Record, pp. 293-300. Also in The Sound Studies Reader, pp. 504-510.
Angela Davis, Blues Legacies and Black Feminism, Ch. 7.
Greg Hainge. Noise Matters, introduction, Ch. 3.
David Margolick, Strange Fruit: The Biography of A Song. New York: Ecco Press, 2001.
David Novak, Japanoise, epilogue.
Mark M. Smith, Listening to Nineteenth-Century America, Ch. 1-3
Marie Thompson, Beyond Unwanted Sound, Ch. 4.
Steve Waksman. Instruments of Desire, Ch. 2.

PPT Week 7

Week 8: A Distanced Brutality
Tuesday 3.8

Thursday 3.10

Required Reading
Michael Sappol. A Traffic of Dead Bodies, pp. 98-135.
Jonathan Sterne. The Audible Past, pp. 31-85.

Additional Reading
Caroline Walker Byunum. Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion. New York: Zone Books, 1992.
Scott Carney. The Red Market: On the Trail of the World's Organ Brokers, Bone Thieves, Blood Farmers and Child Traffickers. New York: William Morrow/Harper Collins, 2011.
Veit Erlmann, Reason and Resonance, Ch.1.
Ralph Ginzburg. 100 Years of Lynchings. Baltimore: Black Classics Press, 1962.
Katherine McKittrick. Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006.
Victoria Nelson. The Secret Life of Puppets. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001.
Ruth Richardson. Death, Dissection, and the Destitute. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987.
Michael Sappol. A Traffic of Dead Bodies, Ch. 5-9.

PPT Week 8

Week 9: Spring Break, No Class Meeting

IV. MEDIA SOUNDSCAPES
Week 10: History & Theory
Tuesday 3.22

Thursday 3.24

Required Reading
There is No Soundtrack, pp. 121-131.
Rick Altman, "Sound Space", in Sound Theory Sound Practice, pp. 46-64.
---, Silent Film Sound, pp.15-23.
Michael Rush, “Installation and the New Cinematics,” in Resolutions 3, pp. 112-120.
Emily Thompson, The Soundscape of Modernity, pp. 229-293. (Skim)

Additional Reading
Bill Fontana. Bill Fontana: Acoustic Visions and Desert Soundings. Abu Dhabi Festival, 2014, 56-61.
Paul Hegarty, Rumour and Radiation, introduction.
Caleb Kelly, Gallery Sound, introduction.
James Lastra, Sound Technology and the American Cinema, Ch. 5 & 6.
Holly Rogers, Sounding the Gallery, Ch. 3.
Emily Thompson, The Soundscape of Modernity, Ch. 7.

PPT Week 10

Week 11: Direct Listening and Observation
Tuesday 3.29 & Thursday 3.31

Required Reading
There is No Soundtrack, pp. 141-157.
Selected transcripts from artist interviews (on Sakai/Resources/Week 11)

Additional Reading
Andrew Albin. “Desiring Medieval Sound," Sounding Out!, May 9, 2016.
Seth Kim-Cohen, “Nothing That is Not There And the Nothing That is: Doug Aitken's Sonic Pavilion,” in Against Ambience and Other Essays, pp. 85-93.
Nina Sun Eidsheim, Sensing Sound, Ch. 2.
Jessica Feldman. “The Trouble with Sounding: Sympathetic Vibrations and Ethical Relations in 'Soundings: A Contemporary Score' at the Museum of Modern Art," Ear/Wave/Event, Issue One.
Steffen Köhn. Mediating Mobility: Visual Anthropology in the Age of Migration. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016, introduction.
Soundings: A Contemporary Score exhibition catalogue. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2013.
William Anastasi: Sound Works, 1963-2013 exhibition brochure. New York: Hunter College, The City University of New York, 2013.

PPT Week 11

Week 12: Empirical Research, Institutional Practices
Tuesday 4.5 & Thursday 4.7

Required Reading
There is No Soundtrack, pp. 131-140, 157-176.
Selected transcripts from artist interviews (on Sakai/Resources/Week 11, if you have not read it last week)

Additional Reading
Rick Altman, "General Introduction: Cinema as Event", in Sound Theory Sound Practice, pp. 1-14.
Michael Bull, Sound Moves.
Steven Connor, “Ears Have Walls: On Hearing Art,” in Sound, pp. 129-139.
Caleb Kelly, Gallery Sound, introduction, Ch. 2.
James Lastra, Sound Technology and the American Cinema, Ch. 5 & 6.
Francisco Lopez. “Profound Listening and Environmental Sound Matter,” in Audio Culture, pp. 82-87.
Pauline Oliveros. Deep Listening: A Composer's Sound Practice. New York: iUniverse, Inc., 2005.

PPT Week 12

V. SOUNDING A POLITICS OF SPACE
Week 13: The Soundscape
Tuesday 4.12

Thursday 4.14

Required Reading
Michael Bull. Sound Moves, pp. 38-49.
Stefan Helmreich, "Life, Water, Sounds Resounding," in Sounding The Limits of Life, pp. 183-187.
R. Murray Schafer, The Soundscape, pp. 3-12, 77-78, 205-225, 237-245.

Additional Reading
Mitchell Akiyama. "Unsettling the World Soundscape Project: Soundscapes of Canada and the Politics of Self-Recognition," Sounding Out! August 20, 2015.
---, “Transparent Listening: Soundscape Composition's Objects of Study,” RACAR: revue d'art canadienne / Canadian Art Review. Vol. 35, No. 1, Landscape, Cultural Spaces, Ecology / Paysages, espaces culturels, écologie (2010), pp. 54-62.
Karin Bijsterveld. Mechanical Sound, pp. 1-26.
Michael Bull. “Thinking About Sound, Proximity, and Distance in Western Experience: The Case of Odysseus’s Walkman,” in Hearing Cultures, pp. 173-190.
Paul Carter. “Ambiguous Traces: Mishearing and Auditory Space,” The Australian Sound Design Project, np.
James Clifford. "Introduction: Partial Truths," Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.
Veit Erlmann, "But What of the Ethnographic Ear?" in Hearing Cultures, pp. 1-20.
Steven Feld. "Acoustemology," in Keywords in Sound, pp. 12-21.
---, "A Rainforest Acoustemology," in The Auditory Culture Reader, pp. 223-239.
---, “Waterfalls of Song: An Acoustemology of Place Resounding in Bosavi, Papua New Guinea,” in Senses of Place. Steven Feld and Keith H. Basso, eds.  Santa Fe, N.M.: School of American Research Press, 1996, pp. 91-135.
Ana Maria Ochoa Gautier. Aurality, Ch. 1.
Annie Goh. ‘Sounding Situated Knowledges: Echo in Archeoacoustics’, Parallax, Vol. 23, No. 3 (2017) pp. 283–304.
Stefan Helmreich, Alien Ocean, Ch. 6.
Charles Hirschkind, The Ethical Soundscape, introduction.
Brandon LaBelle. Acoustic Territories, ebook, np.
Brian Larkin. Signal and Noise: Media, Infrastructure, and Urban Culture in Nigeria. Durham: Duke University Press, 2008, Ch. 2.
Leigh Eric Schmidt. Hearing Things, introduction.
Jonathan Sterne, The Audible Past, pp. 1-29.
Michael Taussig, Mimesis and Alterity, Ch. 14 & 15.
Emily Thompson, The Soundscape of Modernity, pp. 1-12.
Marie Thompson, Beyond Unwanted Sound, Ch. 3.
Gary Tomlinson. The Singing of the New World, Ch. 6.
Roy Wagner. An Anthropology of the Subject: Holographic Worldview in New Guinea and its Meaning and Significance for the World of Anthropology. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001, Ch. 3.
Alexander G. Weheliye. Phonographies, Ch. 4.
Holly Willis, “City as Screen,” in Resolutions 3: Global Networks of Video. Erika Suderburg & Ming-Yuen S. Ma, eds., Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012, pp. 105-111.

PPT Week 13 + 14

Week 14: Transductive Ethnographies
Tuesday 4.19 & Thursday 4.21

Required Reading
There is No Soundtrack, pp. 177-217.

Additional Reading
Rick Altman, Sound Theory Sound Practice, pp. 1-31.
Maryanne Amacher. Maryanne Amacher: City-Links. MINI/Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38, New York: Goethe Institut, 2010.
Marie-Pier Boucher & Patrick Harrop. "Alien Media: An Interview with Rafael Lozano-Hemmer," Inflexions 5: Milieu, Techniques, Aesthetics, 42:9 (May 2012) pp. 148-159.
Christoph Cox. “Abstract Concrete: Francisco López and the Ontology of Sound,” Cabinet, 2 (Spring 2001)
Frances Dyson. The Tone of Our Times, conclusion.
Steven Feld, "A Rainforest Acoustemology," in The Auditory Culture Reader, pp. 223-239.
---, “Waterfalls of Song: An Acoustemology of Place Resounding in Bosavi, Papua New Guinea,” in Senses of Place. Steven Feld and Keith H. Basso, eds.  Santa Fe, N.M.: School of American Research Press, 1996, pp. 91-135.
Bill Fontana. Bill Fontana: Acoustic Visions and Desert Soundings. Abu Dhabi Festival, 2014.
Alan Gilbert. "Alan Gilbert on Ultra-red," Artforum international, 42:9 (May 2004) p. 52.
Stefan Helmreich, Alien Ocean, Ch. 6.
Miwon Kwon. One Place After Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004, pp. 1-31.
Brandon LaBelle, Sonic Agency, introduction, Ch. 4.
Francisco López. “Profound Listening and Environmental Sound Matter,” in Audio Culture, pp. 82-87.
Elana Mann & Juliana Snapper. "Radical Receptives," on Mann's web site.
R. Murray Schafer, The Soundscape, introduction, Ch. 17.
Erika Suderburg, “Introduction: On Installation and Site Specificity,” in Space, Site, Intervention: Situating Installation Art. Erika Suderburg, ed.  Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000, pp. 1-22.
Paul Rodaway. Sensuous Geographies: Body, Sense and Place. New York: Routledge, 1994.
Howard Slater. "Involuntary Music," Datacide Six (May 1999) np.
Marie Thompson, Beyond Unwanted Sound, Ch. 3.
World Soundscape Project web site

PPT Week 13 + 14

Thursday 4.28

Required Reading
There is No Soundtrack, pp. 219-232.

Additional Reading
Maryanne Amacher. Maryanne Amacher: City-Links. MINI/Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38, New York: Goethe Institut, 2010.
Michel Chion, Audio-Vision, pp. 12-20.
Craig Dworkin. No Medium. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2013, Ch. 7.
Veit Erlmann, Reason and Resonance, Ch.7.
Steven Feld. "Acoustemology," in Keywords in Sound, pp. 12-21.
Bill Fontana. Bill Fontana: Acoustic Visions and Desert Soundings. Abu Dhabi Festival, 2014
Adrian Heathfield. "Durational Aesthetics," in Timing - On the Temporal Dimension of Exhibiting. Beatrice von Bismarck Rike Frank, Benjamin Meyer-Krahmer, Jörn Schafaff , Thomas Weski, eds. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2014, pp. 139-143.
Hanna Hölling. Paik's Virtual Archive: Time, Change, and Material in Media Art. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2017, Ch. 7.
R. Murray Schafer. Music for Wilderness Lake: for 12 Trombones. Bancroft: Arcana Editions, 1981.
Susan Sontag. "Notes on Camp," in Against Interpretation. London: Vintage, 1994, pp. 275-292.
Jason Stanyek & Benjamin Peikut. "Deadness: Technologies of the Intermundane," TDR, 54:1 (Spring 2010) pp. 14-38.
Trinh T. Minh-ha. "Bold Omissions and Minute Depictions", When The Moon Waxes Red: Representation, Gender, and Cultural Politics. New York: Routledge, 1991, pp. 155-166.
---, "Holes in the Sound Wall," pp. 201-206.
Hildegard Westerkamp. "Linking Soundscape Composition and Acoustic Ecology," Organized Sound VII, 1 (2002) pp. 51-56.

Additional Media
Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller, Alter Bahnhof Video Walk, 2012, sound walk.
---, FOREST (for a thousand years...) 2012, sound installation.
Ragnar Kjartansson & The National, A Lot of Sorrow, 2013-14, performance and installation.
Niv Fichman & Barbara Willis Sweete, Music for Wilderness Lake (1980) on Sakai/Film Playlist
Chris Marker, Sans Soleil (1982) on Sakai/Film Playlist

PPT Week 15

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