Media Studies 52: Fall 2021
Introduction to Sound Studies

Time/Location: Tuesday / Thursday, 2:55pm - 4:10pm, West Hall Q116


Instructor: Ming-Yuen S. Ma
Phone: x74319
E-mail: ming-yuen_ma@pitzer.edu


Office + Hours:

• Scott Hall 213 / West Hall Q123
• Tuesday 4:30pm-5:30pm (Zoom)
• Wednesday 2:00pm-3:00pm (in-person)
• Thursday by appt. (Zoom or in-person)
• Use mingyuensma.youcanbook.me to make an appt.

 



Course Description
This is an introductory level course exploring different areas of study within sound culture, an emerging field in the human sciences.  This course will introduce students to ways of thinking historically and culturally about sound and listening.  It prepares students for intermediate and advanced level courses in the area, including MS114: Film Sound and MS115: Sound, Art, and Power.

Sound studies is an inherently interdisciplinary field.  While this course is grounded in media studies, it also intersects with history, visual and performing art, architecture, music, cultural studies, anthropology and ethnography, as well as other disciplines.  The course will survey wide ranging topics and cultures including American and European industrialization; rainforest soundscapes of Papua New Guinea; cassette sermons by Islamic preachers in Cairo, Egypt; avant-garde music and DJ culture, to name a few.

This course has no prerequisites.

 


Statement of Student Learning Outcome
By the end of this course, students are expected:
  • To develop an understanding of the major schools of thought and areas of study within the field of sound studies;
  • To develop a sense of the historical and cultural contexts of sound, listening, and sound reproduction technologies;
  • To develop a beginning knowledge of major sound theories;
  • To develop the tools to critically address sound across styles and modes of practice, presentation, and acoustic experiences;
  • To be able to discuss and convey the above-mentioned knowledge and skills in critical written arguments, oral presentations and discussion, as well as through other forms, including sound recordings and media projects;
  • To be able to work and learn in both individual and group contexts.

 



Course Organization

Attendance is mandatory at all sessions every week. 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 class sessions 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.

You are required to help frame at least part of the discussion on Thursday by posting 2-3 discussion questions to Sakai/Forums 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. Any additional media (e.g. sound recordings, video and other media clips, link to blog posts and articles, etc.) that you think might be relevant to class can be posted to the Sakai/Forums for reference during class meetings. Starting in Week 3 or 4, a group of students will go over the discussion questions each week, and work with me to plan and facilitate the class discussion for that week.  Attendance is mandatory at all sessions every week. 

If I assign required events outside of the class meeting time, I normally compensate students with some time off from class. Currently there are no in-person field trips and guest speakers planned for the semester due to Pitzer's COVID policy. We may have some Zoom or other virtual events for the class with guest speakers (e.g. media artists, scholars, etc.) depending on funding, scheduling and availability.

Please turn off all phones and mobile digital devices during class. Laptops can only be used for taking notes and for relevant web searches; no emailing, texting, and other activities unrelated to this class. These and other diversions are not acceptable during class time, and will lower your grade. 

 

Course Requirements
1. Attend all classes
2. Participation in all class activities
3. Completion of all class projects

 



Attendance
Attendance and participation of all classes is required. Do not miss class or arrive late! If you miss class 3 times without a proper excuse, (e.g. a doctor's note if you are sick) you maybe dropped from the class. 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 and emotionally. Our class is a safe space in which students can express their beliefs and opinions. You always have a voice, but please be respectful of others as well. Abusive language and behavior are not be tolerated. Open-mindedness is encouraged!

 



Class Assignments

1. Reading assignments should be completed by the Tuesday of the week they are assigned, unless announced otherwise. These assignments are crucial to your understanding of the course material, your ability to participate in class discussions and to complete other class assignments, and will figure in your class participation grade. (20% of your class grade)
2.

Discussion questions should be posted to Sakai by 10PM each Wednesday night, unless announced otherwise.

These questions serve two main purposes: the first is to give you a place to ask questions about the readings and other class material I may present.  Some of the readings in this class are difficult and the discussion question gives you an opportunity to address any confusion you may have, or to highlight an idea or topic you are excited about.  The second function is to allow myself and the students in the discussion group to see what the students in the class are having a hard time with or most interested in as we prepare for discussion on Thursday. No letter grade will be given for each week's questions, but I do keep track of who has posted them. You will get one “free pass” on discussion questions, but if you miss more than that for an undocumented reason your grade will be impacted. (10% of your class grade)

3.

Discussion group: starting in Week 3 or 4, each week a group of 2-3 students will look over the posted discussion questions, select ones that interest them or address important class topics, and lead a 30 min. discussion in the Thursday class of the same week.

You are welcome to incorporate additional class material, including video, PowerPoint slide shows, or sound recordings, into the discussion. Each discussion group is required to meet with me before the day of their class to discuss and coordinate your lesson plan with mine. Each discussion group will summarize the main ideas, debates, and conclusions discussed in the class they led with 500-700 word post on Sakai/Forum, due a week after the class you led.

See guidelines and grading criteria on group projects. (20% of your class grade)

4.

Autobiographical essay (3-5 pages, typed and double-spaced) exploring your relationship to sound.  Some ways you may consider approaching this assignment are:

  • Describe one of the listening practices that you engage in regularly and how it impacts your day-to-day activities;
  • Describe an acoustic experience or space that you have experienced, singularly or repeatedly, that has influenced you in significant ways;
  • Describe and trace your relationship to a specific sound object (recording, instrument, device, artwork, etc.)

Regardless of the approach that you take you will need to use your personal experience to construct an argument about the nature of sound and how it relates to your life.  Then, you begin to relate your personal experience to at least one of the theoretical concepts and terms we have studied thus far. The more specific you can be in pointing to that experience, and then relate it to a specific idea or concept, the better. (10% of your class grade)

Students have the option of extending this assignment as a final paper or project.

5. Final paper or project: your final project will consist of a research paper (8-10 pages, typed, double-spaced) or a media project (5 mins. max) from a class topic of your own choosing.  See link for more detailed prompts and suggestions. You are required to turn in a one-page proposal in Week 8.  You will meet with me to discuss your proposal in Week 9 or 10. See guidelines for final paper or project. (25% of your class grade)
6. Final presentation: during the last two weeks of this semester, all students will do an oral presentation of their final paper or project in class. These presentations will take a form of a series of panels and performances. Each student will present for 15 min., and each panel / performance will have 60 min., including time for feedback from and discussion with the class. The panel / performance groups will be organized according to your Final Paper / Project proposals. Each group is responsible for organizing their own presentation. See guidelines and grading criteria on group projects. (15% of your class grade)

Unless an extension is approved by myself in advance of the due date, your grade are 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 Sterne textbook. Required readings, when selected from optional textbooks, will be posted on Sakai/Resources. Reading assignments are drawn from the following texts:

Required Textbook
(can be purchased at the Huntley Bookstore)
Jonathan Sterne, ed., The Sound Studies Reader, New York: Routledge, 2012

Optional Textbooks (Required readings from these books will be posted on Sakai, some are available as ebooks through Claremont Colleges Library)
Michael Bull & Les Back, eds., The Auditory Culture Reader (Sensory Formations), London: Berg Publishers, 2004
Christoph Cox & Daniel Warren, eds., Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music, London: Continuum, 2004
Caleb Kelly, ed., Sound, Documents of Contemporary Art Series, London/Cambridge, MA: Whitechapel Gallery/MIT Press, 2011
Trevor Pinch and Karin Bijsterveld, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies, New York: Oxford University Press, 2013
Mark M. Smith, Hearing History: A Reader, Athens: Georgia University Press, 2004

Additional References (Many are available as ebooks at the Library. A good place to start your research for final paper and projects)
Rick Altman, Silent Film Sound (Film and Culture Series). New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.
---, editor, Sound Theory Sound Practice. New York: Routledge, 1992. G. Douglas Barrett. After Sound: Toward a Critical Music. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.
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.
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.
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.
---, Sound Moves: iPod Culture and Urban Experience. New York: Routledge, 2007.
John Cage. Silence: Lectures and Writings, Middleton, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1961.
Adriana Cavarero. For More Than One Voice: Towards a Philosophy of Vocal Expression. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005.
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.
---, The Voice in Cinema. trans. Claudia Gorbman, New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.
---, Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen. trans. Claudia Gorbman, New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.
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: Bloomsburg Academic, 2013.
Paul Hegarty, Rumour and Radiation: Sound in Video Art. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014.
---, Noise Music: A History. London: Continuum, 2007.
Stefan Helmreich. Sounding The Limits of Life: Essays in the Anthropology of Biology and Beyond. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016.
---, 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.
Don Ihde, Listening and Voice: Phenomenologies of Sound, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press; 1976.
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.
Ming-Yuen S. Ma, There is No Soundtrack: Rethinking Art, Media, and the Audio-Visual Contract, Manchester: University of Manchester Press, 2020.
& Erika Suderburg, eds. Resolutions 3: Global Networks of Video. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012.
David Morton, Off the Record: The Technology and Culture of Sound Recording in America, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2000.
John Mowitt. Sounds: The Ambient Humanities. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2015.
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.
--- & Matt Sakakeeny. eds. Keywords in Sound. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2015.
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.
R. Murray Schafer. The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World. Rochester, VT: Destiny Books, 1977.
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.
Kaja Silverman. The Acoustic Mirror; The Female Voice in Psychoanalysis and Cinema. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988.
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.
Jonathan Sterne. MP3: The Meaning of a Format (Sign, Storage, Transmission), Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012.
---, The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003.
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.
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.
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.
Elisabeth Weis and John Belton. eds. Film Sound: Theory and Practice. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985.




 


Grading
Your final grade will be based on the following
Discussion questions - 10%
Discussion group - 20%
Autobiographical essay - 10%
Final paper or project - 25%
Final presentation - 15%
Class participation* 20%

* 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 coordinators: 

CMC - Julia Easley, julia.easley@claremontmckenna.edu
Harvey Mudd – Deborah Kahn, dkahn@hmc.edu
Pitzer - Gabriella Tempestoso, gabriella_tempestoso@pitzer.edu
Pomona - Jan Collins-Eaglin, Jan.Collins-Eaglin@pomona.edu
Scripps - Academic Resources and Services (ARS) at 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 remotely attend screenings, concerts, conferences, lectures, exhibitions and web events related to this course. Write a two-page (typed and double-spaced) report of the event or activity. Incorporate the event's relevance to the class as well as your personal responses to it. Proof of attendance is required (keep your ticket stubs, programs, etc.) Students are allowed two extra credit papers. Announcements for events of interest to this class are done in the first 5 mins. of each class.

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.

 



Technology and Equipment
Although this is not a media production course, students are expected to be able to perform basic tasks, including downloading class readings from the class web site, posting on Sakai, and in some cases, uploading or creating links to the class blog. PowerPoint maybe useful in designing class presentations, but they are not required. Group projects are a good place for you to learn from each other and acquire new skills. If you are having problems with the technology we use in this class, please come and talk to me during my office hours.

If you are planning to do a media project for the final, please choose a format that you have worked in previously. The IMS Production Center has sound recording equipment (e.g. different microphones, headphones, both digital and analog recorders) that can be checked out by students in this class, but you have to demonstrate to the staff that you know how to use them properly before doing so. The same applies to sound editing software. For Production Center equipment check-out days and policy, please go to their web site.

If there is sufficient interest and common ground, I will consider organizing sound recording workshops during the second half of the semester. These will take place outside of our class meeting time, and will be organized in conjunction with the Production Center staff.
 

 

 

 

 

Course Schedule:

Week 1: Introduction
Tuesday 8.31 / Thursday 9.2
Introduction
Go over syllabus, assignments, reading, etc.
What is sound?
Hearing and listening
What is sound studies?
Sound, vision, and Modernism
PPT

Required Reading (for Thursday's class)
The Sound Studies Reader, pp. 1-17
Audio Culture, pp.10-14




I. Sound Theories

Week 2
: Listening

Tuesday 9.7 / Thursday 9.9
Listening as phenomenology
Modes of listening
Ontology of vibrational forces
Case study: cassette sermons in Cairo
PPT

Required Reading
The Sound Studies Reader, pp. 23-28, 48-72
Audio Culture, pp.10-14

Suggested Reading
Audio Culture, pp. 65-112
The Auditory Culture Reader, pp. 1-18, 25-60, 77-112
The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies, pp. 3-35
Sound, pp. 112-143
The Sound Studies Reader, pp. 73-90

Media on class blog



 

Week 3: Noise
Tuesday 9.14 / Thursday 9.16

Silence and John Cage
Noise: The Political Economy of Music
Industrial noise and noise pollution
Avant-garde noise
noise music
PPT

Required Reading
Audio Culture, pp. 25-28
The Sound Studies Reader
, pp. 29-39, 152-167

Suggested Reading
Audio Culture, pp. 15-61 (pp. 59-61 is an interview with Merzbow)
Hearing History, pp. 51-53, 319-330
Sound, pp. 93-107
The Sound Studies Reader, pp. 427-448

Media on class blog

 


 

Week 4: Voices
Tuesday 9.21 / Thursday 9.23

Voice as presence / difference
The grain of the voice
Posthuman voices
Vocal uniqueness
Uncanny voices
Prelinguistic and postlinguistic voices
Discussion group: Amirah, Isabelle, Win
PPT
Autobiographical essay assignment

Required Reading
The Sound Studies Reader, pp. 495-519; pick one to read: 520-532, 533-538, or 539-554

Suggested Reading
The Auditory Culture Reader, pp. 381-480
Sound, pp. 93-107
Michel Chion, The Voice in Cinema
Leslie C. Dunn, and Nancy C. Jones, eds., Embodied Voices: Representing Female Vocality in Western Culture
Amy Lawrence, Echo and Narcissus: Women’s Voices in Classical Hollywood Cinema
Kaja Silverman, The Acoustic Mirror; The Female Voice in Psychoanalysis and Cinema

Media on class blog

 


 

II. Histories of Sound

Week 5
: Listening to History / Histories of Listening, Autobiographical Essay Due
Tuesday 9.28 / Thursday 9.30
Aural history
The role of bells in 19th Century French village life
Feminist historiography of electronic music
PPT
Autobiographical essay due Thursday 9.30, upload to your Sakai Drop Box by 5PM, MS Word files (.doc or .docx) only.

Required Reading
Hearing History, pp. ix-xxii, 184-204
The Sound Studies Reader
, pp. 475-489

Suggested Reading
The Auditory Culture Reader, pp. 117-217
Hearing History
, the whole book!

Media on class blog

 


 

Week 6: Histories of Sound & Technology
Tuesday 10.5 / Thursday 10.7

Listening and medicine in 19th Century Edinburgh
The soundscape of modernity
Music and electronic reproduction
Discussion group: Harry, Jada, Kevin
PPT

Required Reading
Hearing History, pp. 151-168
The Sound Studies Reader, pp. 117-129, 213-224

Suggested Reading
The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies, pp. 176-197, 201-223, 298-319, 459-479

Media on class blog





 

Week 7: Acoustic Archive, Final Paper / Project Assignment
Tuesday 10.12 / Thursday 10.14

Preserving the voices of the dead
Gender and early telephone culture
Mechanical to digital: sonification
PPT
Discussion group: Josh, Quinn, Sarah
Proposals for final paper / project due after Fall Break. See guidelines for final paper or project.

Required Reading
Hearing History, pp. 295-318
The Sound Studies Reader, pp. 336-350
The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies, pp. 544-560

Suggested Reading
The Sound Studies Reader, pp. 304-324, 475-489

Required Media
PHANTOM OF THE OPERATOR (2004, Canada) Directed by Caroline Martel
THE TAILENDERS (2005, U.S.) Directed by Adele Horne
Media on class blog

 

 

III. Sound as Media

Week 8
: Media Networks and Communities; Proposal for Final Paper / Project Due;

Fall Break - No Class Meeting on Tuesday 10.19
Thursday 10.21

Phonograph and Gramophone: media technology a priori
Gender and early telephone culture
Radio programming and community
Online music sites killed the radio star - or did they?
PPT
Proposal for Final Paper / Project due, 1 page, typed and double-spaced, plus preliminary bibliography, upload to your Sakai Drop Box by 5PM, MS Word files (.doc or .docx) only. See guidelines for final paper or project.

Required Reading
The Sound Studies Reader, pp. 234-247, 351-362
The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies, pp. 480-502


Suggested Reading
Audio Culture, pp. 329-350
The Auditory Culture Reader, pp. 281-295
Hearing History, pp. 279-294
The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies, pp. 254-264, 411-439, 440-458
The Sound Studies Reader, pp. 40-47, 283-303, 329-335, 363-387
Sound, pp. 204-206

Media on class blog



 

Week 9: Film Sound
Tuesday 10.26 / Thursday 10.28

Sound and film theory
Film sound as representation
Audio-vision
Voice in cinema
Sound in new media: computer animation
Sound in experimental narratives
PPT
Discussion Group: Adrian, Ana-Sophia, Z.

Required Reading
Audio-Vision, pp. 3-13
Film Sound, pp. 162-176
The Sound Studies Reader, pp. 225-233
The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies, pp. 367-386

Suggested Reading
The Auditory Culture Reader, pp. 281-295
The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies, pp. 347-366, 387-408
Sound, pp. 200-203, 206-208
The Sound Studies Reader, pp. 248-253

Required Media
Excerpts from PERSONA (1966) Directed by Ingmar Bergman - screened in class
Excerpts from PSYCHO (1960) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock - screened in class
Additional media on class blog



 

IV. Sound Space

Week 10
: Soundscape
Tuesday 11.2 / Thursday 11.4

The soundscape
History and acoustic spaces
Walkmans & iPods: music and urban space
Sound in art and installation
PPT
Discussion group: Cedar, Geneieve, Jad

Required Reading
The Sound Studies Reader, pp. 95-104, 197-208, 468-474

Suggested Reading
Audio Culture, pp. 40-46, 88-93, 94-109
The Auditory Culture Reader, pp. 137-163, 303-374
Hearing History, pp. 85-111, 267-278, 319-330
The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies, pp. 39-78, 273-319, 526-543
Sound, pp. 187-193, 208-210
The Sound Studies Reader, pp. 105-116, 140-151, 186-196, 265-282, 329-335,

Bring your mobile music device to class on Thursday



 


Week 11: Acoustemology & Representation
Tuesday 11.9 / Thursday 11.11

Anthropology of sound
Representing soundscapes
PPT
Discussion group: Heather, Ryan

Required Reading
Audio Culture, pp. 82-87
The Sound Studies Reader, pp. 168-185
The Auditory Culture Reader, pp. 223-239
Sound, pp. 123-129, 219-222

Suggested Reading
Audio Culture, pp. 67-72
The Auditory Culture Reader, pp. 241-279
Sound, pp. 112-117, 187-193 197-199
The Sound Studies Reader, pp. 409-418

Media on class blog

 

 

Week 12: Open Class Topic + Lab for Final Presentation

Tuesday 11.16
Black Noise - example of class topic determined by the class
PPT

Thursday 11.18

Open lab: student work with their groups on final presentation

Required Reading
Black Noise, pp. 62-96

Suggested Reading
Tricia Rose, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1994
---, The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop--and Why It Matters. Civitas Books, 2008.
Tricia Rose and Andrew Ross, eds. Microphone Fiends: Youth Music and Youth Culture, New York: Routledge, 1994.

Media on class blog

 


 

Week 13: Student Presentations; Thanksgiving Holiday - No Class Meeting on Thursday 11.25

Tuesday 11.23
Student presentations:

No Required Reading

 


 

Week 14: Student Presentations

Tuesday 11.30
Student presentations:

Thursday 12.2

Student presentations:

No Required Reading



 

Week 15: Last Week of Classes, Student Presentations, Paper / Project Due

Tuesday 12.7 / Thursday 12.9
Student presentations on Tuesday:
Wrap-up discussion (on Thursday) + class party!
Class evaluation

No Required Reading

Thursday 12.16
Revised papers due, upload to Drop Box by 5PM

 

 

 






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