Music, Nature, Ecology

Explores how music mediates human relations to the natural world. Via case studies drawn from Western and non-Western societies, we will examine how theorists use sound to think through the difference between humans and non-humans; how composers and soundscape artists like Grieg, Ives, Westerkamp, and John Luther Adams shape listeners’ perceptions of natural worlds and ecological systems; how people in Papua New Guinea, Mongolia, and the Bolivian Andes use sound to coordinate ecological awareness; how instruments are implicated in human relationships with the environment; and the ways that sound art helps to challenge longstanding distinctions between nature and its others.