Listening as a collective act. (Photograph courtesy of Chiu Longina.)
Instructor(s)
Prof. Stefan Helmreich
MIT Course Number
21A.360J / STS.065J / CMS.710J
As Taught In
Spring 2008
Level
Undergraduate
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.