Sound Studies

The ancient media formations attendant upon sound, orality and aurality comprise one of the foundational communicative practice of human sociality and culture. Yet, despite the deep anthropological and historical centrality of sound to the human sensorium and cultural creativity, it has only been in the last twenty years or so that "sound studies" has emerged as a distinctive field within (and alongside) media and communication studies. This course will explore the contours of this exciting emergent field, as well as the core concepts that orient the bearing of its scholars towards the critical analysis of sound as phenomenon, cultural event, and social practice.

Course Description: Sound studies describes the various ways in we can know the world through sound, understand sonic phenomena or practices, and explore how sound extends the contours of academic knowledge production. Highly interdisciplinary and often undertaken in cooperation with those outside academia, from musicians to professionals, the field of sound studies is increasingly diverse, daring and exciting. This co-taught course will explore the cultural, social, philosophical, political and material dimensions of sound and listening. We will explore questions such as: how do race and ethnicity intersect with listening? is our pristine natural sonic environment increasingly ruined by industrialisation and urbanisation? how do states seek to regulate sound and noise? how does podcasting change academic knowledge production? how can we know the world through sound? what's the importance of sound design in documentary film? what does the advancement of literacy do to cultures of orality? how does technology mediate sonic knowledge and musical production? Taking sonic mediums seriously, the course also includes practical sessions in which students will learn how to create audio materials relating to the topics and theories explored in class.

Sound studies is a name for the interdisciplinary ferment in the human sciences that takes sound as its analytical point of departure or arrival. By analyzing both sonic practices and the discourses and institutions that describe them, it redescribes what sound does in the human world, and what humans do in the sonic world. (Sterne, 2012 p.2) Sound is vibration that is perceived and becomes known through its materiality. Metaphors for sound construct perceptual conditions of hearing and shape the territories and boundaries of sound in social life. Sound resides in this feedback loop of materiality and metaphor, infusing words with a diverse spectrum of meanings and interpretations. (Novak and Sakakeeny, 2015 p. 1) In recent years there has been an explosion of work on, with or through sound by researchers in the social sciences and humanities. Highly interdisciplinary and often undertaken in cooperation with those outside academia, from musicians to professionals, the field of sound studies is increasingly diverse, daring and exciting. Using sonic frames to think through how technology mediates relations, how cultures of perception are learnt and changed, and how the growth and diversity of mass media informs communication can help us develop fresh approaches to longstanding questions, whatever our disciplinary home. This interdisciplinary and experimental course into the cultural, social, political and material dimensions of sound and listening will challenge students to both rethink their existing ideas and develop new interests. We will explore questions such as: What is ‘noise’ and why do states seek to regulate it? How does culture shape sound? How does architectural practice change as cities become nosier? What role does sound play in film? What is the relationship between music and social structure? How does technology mediate listening? What can listening more and reading less do to academic practice? How do people listen to religion? How can sound be seen? What else do we listen with apart from our ears? Taking sonic mediums seriously, the course includes practical sessions in which students will learn how to create audio materials relating to the topics and theories explored in class. Structure & Aim The aim of this course is two-fold: firstly to interrogate some of the key debates in sound studies, secondly to acquaint students with some of the different skills needed to undertake research through a sonic lens. Touching on some of the most important moments in the development of the field, as well as contemporary debates, 9 of the 12 sessions will be used to help students situate their thinking within a body of scholarship that is seemingly in a constant state of emergence. The remaining 3 sessions (taking place once every 4 weeks) will involve practical learning and hands on engagement within and outside the university. It will push students to experiment with different ways of listening and researching – from soundwalks to podcasting to transduction. Students will develop public facing materials in these sessions, which may be published if of sufficient quality. Learning Goals Students will: • have an understanding of the possibilities sound studies offers for research within and across disciplines • become acquainted with some of the key debates in the field • learn how to do field recordings • learn how to make a podcast • learn how to transduce images into sounds • experiment with applying theoretical and analytical insights in work across different sonic mediums Instructors Internal • Ian M. Cook ([email protected]) Research Fellow at the Centre for Media Data and Society Lead for 6 sessions along with course design & management Please contact Ian for all questions or concerns regarding the course and the other instructors for questions regarding their sessions. • Cameran Ashraf ([email protected]) Assistant Professor at the School of Public Policy Teaching Class 10 ‘Orality, Literacy and Technology’ • Jeremy Braverman ([email protected]) Media and Visual Education Specialist & Visiting Professor Department of History Teaching Class 6 ‘Sound Design for Film’ and co-teaching Class 1 ‘Introductions’ • Dumitrita Holdis ([email protected]) Centre for Media, Data and Society Co-teaching Class 8 ‘Podcasting for Academics’ • Sara Svensson ([email protected]) Research Fellow at the Center for Policy Studies & Visiting Professor at the School of Public Policy Teaching Class 3 ‘The Policies of Regulating Sound’ External • Judit Emese Konopás ([email protected]) Independent Sound Researcher Co-teaching Class 5 ‘Soundwalks / Phenomenological Music Listening’ • Zoltán Kovács ([email protected]) Interaction Designer, musician – Budapest Metropolitan University & Elefant Teaching Class 12 ‘Transduction and Sonification’ • Lucia Udvardyová ([email protected]) Journalist, Musician, Organizer/curator, DJ – Easterndaze/Baba Vanga/SHAPE Co-teaching Class 5 ‘Soundwalks / Phenomenological Music Listening’

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2010

American Ethnologist, 2004

Sound has come to have a particular resonance in many disciplines over the past decade. Social theorists, historians, literary researchers, folklorists, and scholars in science and technology studies and visual, performative, and cultural studies provide a range of substantively rich accounts and epistemologically provocative models for how researchers can take sound seriously. This conversation explores general outlines of an anthropology of sound. Its main focus, however, is on the issues involved in using sound as a primary medium for ethnographic research. [sound, epistemology, ethnography, documentation, media representation] S ound has come to have a particular resonance in many disciplines over the past decade.

Pinch and Bijsterveld's edited publication is a significant book contributing to the discussion on sound within science, technology and society studies (STS). The contribution that this edited book makes lies in its focus on sound: sound as a material, product, object, as well as a social concept. The book examines such topics as listening as a practice within medicine, sounds within design, the production and consumption of sound and embodied listening, and filters the extensive data that surrounds technology and society, questions the way that sound has constructed and/or shaped technology and explores the impact of sound within the empirical sciences. The book and its approach to sound are situated firmly within the socio technological, drawing upon the fields of social constructivism and social shaping theories on technology. This approach reflects the increasing awareness of sound within society, as integral to certain disciplines such as urban and industrial design, ecological and anthropological studies and music and art theory. Pinch and Bijsterveld suggest this interest echoes the increased presence of audio monitoring technologies, within western cultures, as in schools or industry.

(...) a specific sound studies contribution that amounts to answering the question: “what is the use of sound studies?” The answer would be: escape from cybernetic thinking concerning sensations and processes of signification. This would first be achieved by showing that the practice and contents of sciences and technologies – no matter whether “information” or “data” – are often occulo-centric. Second, by showing that this audition/view distinction is itself the result of a cybernetic design that distinguishes faculties to better prioritize them. From this point of view, there is something paradoxical in what Sterne and Akiyama propose in the same article, to extend the technical “transduction” concept to the human ear, as their intention is to apply a technical metaphor to a human process. This idea is picked up and underlined in the introduction to the OHSS, accompanied by the proposal to similarly enlarge the idea of “conversion.” (...)

Encylopaedia entry for ‘Anthropology Beyond Text’ edited by R Cox, one of a 12 volume series in International Encyclopaedia of Anthropology New York: Wiley Blackwell Press, 2017.

SEM Student News, 13.2 , 2017

This column draws attention to exciting ways you can get involved in SEM and related projects and sites of activity. From conferences to publications, this column provides updates and information on becoming more active and engaged as an ethnomusicologist. If you have announcements, calls, or new programs that should be included in an upcoming issue, please contact us at [email protected].