Undergraduate Module Descriptor

ANT2090: Sound and Society

This module descriptor refers to the 2018/9 academic year.

Module Aims

To explore ways in which the production and consumption of sound are bound up in social relations and practices.

To question cultural assumptions about the nature and possibilities of sound and listening.

To examine how key concepts (for example, ideas of 'place' and 'space') may be re-configured through acoustic perspectives.

To consider the implications of 'thinking acoustically' for anthropological methodology and analysis.

To interrogate listening and sound recording as ways of engaging with and representing social life.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

This module's assessment will evaluate your achievement of the ILOs listed here – you will see reference to these ILO numbers in the details of the assessment for this module.
On successfully completing the programme you will be able to:
Module-Specific Skills1. Competently explain how some key texts give insight into the involvement of sound in social relations;
2. Make competent critical assessments of some theoretical perspectives in anthropological and sociological approaches to the study of sound;
3. Accurately identify and competently discuss some methodological issues associated with the study of sound in anthropology and sociology;
Discipline-Specific Skills4. Give clear explanations of how some key concepts in sociology and anthropology can be illustrated in relation to the analysis of empirical data;
5. Competently communicate, both in writing and orally, some awareness of strategies for analytically linking micro and macro perspectives;
6. Show competence in critically assessing and developing theoretical ideas through reflection on experiences and observations of social life;
Personal and Key Skills7. Show an ability to engage in independent research and analysis;
8. Competently build and defend an argument based on evidence;
9. Communicate effectively in written and verbal form.

Indicative Reading List

This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.

Basic reading:

 

Bijsterveld, K. 2003.‘The Diabolical Symphony of the Mechanical Age. Technology and Symbolism of Sound in European and North American Noise Abatement Campaigns, 1900-1940’. In The Auditory Culture Reader (eds) M. Bull & L. Back, 165-189. Oxford: Berg.

 

Corbin, A. 1998. Village bells: sound and meaning in the nineteenth-century French countryside. New York: Columbia University Press.

 

Feld, S. 1990. Sound and Sentiment: birds, weeping, poetics, and song in Kaluli expression. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press

 

Picker, J. M. 2003. Victorian Soundscapes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

 

Rice, T. 2013. Hearing and the Hospital. Canon Pyon: Sean Kingston Press.