MUSIC 7321

Politics, Utopias, and Noise in the Sound Archive

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2021-2022.

The development of sound recording technologies at the end of the 19th century revolutionized musicological research and the idea of storing and circulating music and sound. The establishment of the first sound archives soon after allowed for an unprecedented access to musical practices from around the globe and the development of new forms of knowledge in relation to nation- and empire-building projects. These practices are the starting point for an exploration of the principles and practice of sound storage and retrieval in historical and contemporary contexts in an attempt to interrogate traditional archives but also expand the notion of what an archive can be at a moment marked by the arrival of the aural turn in the humanities.

When Offered Spring.

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