21A.505J | Spring 2022 | Undergraduate

The Anthropology of Sound

Course Description

This course examines the ways humans experience sound and how perceptions and technologies of sound emerge from cultural, economic, and historical worlds. It considers how the sound/noise/music boundaries have been imagined, created, and modeled across sociocultural and historical contexts. Students will learn how …
This course examines the ways humans experience sound and how perceptions and technologies of sound emerge from cultural, economic, and historical worlds. It considers how the sound/noise/music boundaries have been imagined, created, and modeled across sociocultural and historical contexts. Students will learn how environmental, linguistic, and musical sounds are construed cross-culturally as well as the rise of telephony, architectural acoustics, sound recording, multi-channel and spatial mix performance, and the globalized travel of these technologies. Questions of sound ownership, property, authorship, remix, and copyright in the digital age are also addressed.
Learning Resource Types
Lecture Notes
Readings
Activity Assignments with Examples
Written Assignments with Examples
A young man wearing headphones stands behind two turntables.
A DJ works his turntables. (Image courtesy of Carlo Alberto Della Siega on Flickr. License CC BY.)