Mar 28, 2024  
2020-2021 Academic Catalog 
    
2020-2021 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

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CCT 2200 - Sound Studies


Credits: 3

In this sophomore-level critical studies course, students explore ideas central to the emerging field of Sound Studies— a range of histories, archaeologies, and ethnographies of sound making and listening that intersects with topics in media studies, science and technology, political economy, composition, deaf studies, and musicology. As sound (re)production technologies continue to change, the cultural dimensions of sonic experience change too and reflexively impact our aural sensitivities, media communications, and development of those very same technologies. How do we listen differently to the phonautograph, the piano, the vinyl record, the mp3, the EDM concert, an immersive IMAX or VR experience? How have these differences shaped our experience of nature or the imagined soundscapes of distant planets? By drawing connections between historical, biological, technological, ethnographic, and phenomenological methods of inquiry, students learn to reevaluate and interpret how political, commercial, and social forces shape, and are shaped by, what we listen to and how. Ultimately, the course asks foundational questions about the reproduction, circulation, and experience of sound and equips students to think critically about how sound, technology, culture, and environment interact.

Prerequisites: HU 1110 - Humanities I: World Thought I  

Course Learning Outcomes:
  • Explain using historical evidence how our experience of sound changes in relation to technological reproduction, cultural context, and physical environment.
  • Produce written arguments about how audio and media technologies affect how we listen and communicate using sound.




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