The Anthropology of Sound

Photo of a small group of adults and children, wearing colored jumpsuits and in various poses of concentrated listening.

Listening as a collective act. (Photograph courtesy of Chiu Longina.)

Instructor(s)

MIT Course Number

21A.360J / STS.065J / CMS.710J

As Taught In

Spring 2008

Level

Undergraduate

Cite This Course

Course Description

Course Features

Course Description

This class examines the ways humans experience the realm of sound and how perceptions and technologies of sound emerge from cultural, economic, and historical worlds. In addition to learning about how environmental, linguistic, and musical sounds are construed cross-culturally, students learn about the rise of telephony, architectural acoustics, and sound recording, as well as about the globalized travel of these technologies. Questions of ownership, property, authorship, and copyright in the age of digital file sharing are also addressed. A major concern will be with how the sound/noise boundary has been imagined, created, and modeled across diverse sociocultural and scientific contexts. Auditory examples — sound art, environmental recordings, music — will be provided and invited throughout the term.

Related Content

Stefan Helmreich. 21A.360J The Anthropology of Sound. Spring 2008. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare, https://ocw.mit.edu. License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA.


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