B1848 - SOUND ECOLOGIES AND THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF SUSTAINABILITY

Conoscenze e abilità da conseguire

This course introduces a new perspective on sustainability by exploring anthropological ideas through case studies focusing on sound and music. Anthropologists and ethnomusicologists have long been interested in how sound and music express different ways of being in the world, of experiencing and imagining existence, and of communicating across species divides. From ancient cosmological ideas about the music of the spheres to the spiritual and medical effects of trance, music may offer alternative ways of knowing and being. Imitation of birdsong and animal calls is important for forest peoples’ hunting techniques, and the ‘silent spring’ heralded the birth of the environmentalist movement. Drumbeats and protest songs animate demonstrations of resistance to environmental destruction. Technological listening and ‘sounding’ are among the tools scientists use to monitor biodiversity and environmental change. The course will train students to pay attention to the ways in which different senses can condition their perceptions of the environment, and to the part in which music and sound, and the materialities of musical production and sound making, play in human lived worlds. They will develop awareness of the insights that an acoustic approach can bring to questions of environmental sustainability. Students will also have the opportunity to learn to use sound recording to carry out ethnographic research.

Contenuti

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Testi/Bibliografia

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Metodi didattici

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Modalità di verifica e valutazione dell'apprendimento

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Orario di ricevimento

Consulta il sito web di Marc Andrew Brightman