MED 260 | Sound Culture

The studies on sound, sound media, sound art, and the histories and ethnographies of listening, and hearing have exponentially grown during the last decade. Sound studies carry particular importance considering dominating power of visuality and visual culture. This course underlines the significance of sound, listening, and hearing in contemporary everyday life, and in historical moments. We will explore a range of histories, and ethnographies of sound and listening, as it intersects with topics in media studies, technology studies, political economy, and musicology. Some of the questions we will explore in the course are as follows: - How does political, commercial, and cultural context define what we listen to, and how we listen to it? - How do various media forms shape how sound is made, used and heard? - How has our experience of sound changed from radio to the personal computer, from oral culture, to the phonoautograph and to the mp3? - What is the relationship between hearing and listening? - How can we conceptualize “hearing” and “listening” at the age of the technologies of interaction? - What are the significance of noise and silence in various historical moments and cultural contexts?