First-Year Seminar: Sound On

3 units

What does 21st-century life sound like? The aim of this course is to interrogate, denaturalize, and critique familiar experiences and technologies of contemporary listening: from earbuds and mobile devices to streaming services and social media to the ambient music of capitalism and the (mediated) persistence of live performance. Readings in musicology, sound studies, and media theory will be examined alongside students' contemporary lived musical experience. Musical and sonic exercises in close, situated listening as well as examinations of distracted, ubiquitous listening will form some of the primary materials of the course. Analyses of both readings and activities will result in the production of a collaborative weekly digital newsletter as well as culminating projects by individual students. This course is for first-year, non-transfer students only.