Soundscapes and Aurality in American Culture: An Introduction to American Studies
AMST 175
Fall 2014 not offered
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This course is intended as an introduction to interdisciplinary thought, to American studies as a field, and to the hemispheric and transnational intellectual direction of the American Studies Program at Wesleyan. Its goal is to answer the question, What IS American studies? The focus for this semester is the emerging scholarship on sound and aurality that addresses, as a special issue of AMERICAN QUARTERLY argued recently, the following questions: What role can sound play in analyzing contemporary debates around empire, immigration, and national culture? Where is sound in the cultural and political legacies of American culture and where is it in the long history of nation-building? What role have hearing and listening played in American formations of race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, and class, and how has the birth of recorded sound in the late 19th century informed those formations? How are new sound technologies and sonic media practices impacting American identities in the age of globalization? What are the political economies of sound? Does citizenship have a sound? Over the course of the semester, we will listen to archived sounds as well as sample new ways of interpreting the enculturated nature of sound, from the howling wilderness of the colonial era to the aural pluralism of digital media and music in the Internet era. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS AMST |
| Course Format: Lecture / Discussion | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (AMST) |
Major Readings:
Kara Keating and Josh Kun, eds., Sound Clash: Listening to American Studies
Richard Rath, How Early America Sounded
Leigh Schmidt, Hearing Things: Religion, Illusion, and the American Enlightenment
Jonathan Sterne, The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction
John W. Troutman, Indian Blues: American Indians and the Politics of Music, 1879-1934
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Examinations and Assignments:
Attendance is mandatory; participation in discussion will be reflected in the final grade. (You will be asked to frame and post questions/comments for discussion as well as join in the conversation.)
Papers: Two short papers (3-5 pp.) and a final research paper (10-12 pp.)
Exams: Take-home final. |
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