COML 4105 - [Soundscapes of the Americas]

(crosslisted)
(also ENGL 4105, ROMS 4105)(GB) (LA-AS)

Spring. 4 credits.

Next offered 2014-2015. Enrollment limited to: 15 students.

T. McEnaney.

In this course we will consider how sound, and sound technologies from the gramophone to the telephone, from radio to the mp3, have influenced and continue to shape cultural and political life in the Americas. Along the way, we might want to ask: How did early border radio call into question the territorial limits of nations in the Americas? How does the history of the phonograph relate to the cultural construction of race? What might it mean to think of a culture by how it listens rather than how it sees? Readings, films and sound art may include J. Agee, C. Aira, L. Anderson, G. Cabrera-Infante, F. Coppola, R. Ellison, N. Guillén, L. Hughes, V. Huidobro, T. Morrison, M. Puig, G. Stein, J. Toomer, C. Vallejo, O. Welles, W.C. Williams, R. Wright.