Undergraduate Module Descriptor

ANT2090: Sound and Society

This module descriptor refers to the 2021/2 academic year.

Module Content

Syllabus Plan

Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover some or all of the following topics:

1. Sound, Space and Place (part 1)

2. Sound, Space and Place (part 2)

3. Audible Pasts

4. Noise

5. Sound and Surveillance

6. Sound and Control

7. Sound and Sensory politics

8. Listening

9. Sonic sites (a case study of a particular sonic environment)

10. Anthropology in Sound

Learning and Teaching

This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:

Scheduled Learning and Teaching ActivitiesGuided independent studyPlacement / study abroad
221280

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

CategoryHours of study timeDescription
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activity2211 x 2 hour seminars
Guided independent study40Examination preparation
Guided Independent Study42Module Reading
Guided independent study26Essay writing
Guided independent study20Seminar Preparation

Online Resources

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).

http://vle.exeter.ac.uk

Web based and electronic resources:

Anthropology and Sound - online resource produced through a collaboration between the Centre for Creative Research in Sound Arts Practice at the London College of Communication and the Anthropology Department at the University of St Andrews - http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/soundanth/index.php

Cusick, S. 2006. ‘Music as torture: Music as weapon’. Transcultural Music Review 10.http://www.sibetrans.com/trans/a152/music-as-torture-music-as-weapon.

Other Learning Resources

Drever, J. 2005. Sounding Dartmoor. iDAT.

Feld, S. 1991. Voices of the Rainforest. Rykodisc.

Rice, T. 2015. Govindpuri Sound. BBC World Service Documentary. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02hm1rx

Wynne, J. 2007. Hearts, Lungs and Minds. BBC Radio 4 documentary

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.