ENG 380WHow We Listen

Catalog

ENG 380W How We Listen - This course will introduce you the idea of listening as a critical practice. It will ask you to consider the many ways that humans make and experience sound, both by itself and in conjunction with the other senses. In addition to exploring individual listening practices, we will consider the larger social implications of listening, particularly how it impacts and embeds sound within our history, cultures, institutions, literatures, and technologies. In our course discussions, we will tackle questions such as: Did the invention of streaming media actually change the way we listen to music? Does the sound of your voice impact your chances at employment and good housing? Do supposedly neutral "noise ordinances" actually affect some people more than others? Is our environment getting "noisier"? Is there such a thing as "noise pollution"? How has sound played a crucial role in contemporary social movements like #Occupy and the Montreal #Casseroles protests? Do we all listen in the same way? Along the way, you will be introduced to the exciting new interdisciplinary field of sound studies and some of its primary theories and research, especially in regards to the role of listening in film, music, the environment, history, literature, urban space, and politics. This course offers several active learning assignments involving sound and a final blog post project where you will use multimedia, multimodal writing techniques to express your ideas.