Enroll in J-Term Course “Soundfuturism: the aesthetics and politics of urban sounds”

This J-term course is a hands-on workshop that will use sound as a conduit for exploring class, gender, and racial inequalities in the context of a post-industrial city in the US.

Enroll in open J-term course

URST 209 – Soundfuturism: the aesthetics and politics of urban sounds

January 3 -21, 2022

COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course is a hands-on workshop that will use sound as a conduit for exploring class, gender, and racial inequalities in the context of a post-industrial city in the US. Sound, in its different forms such as noise, music, and “silence,” reveals aspects of the unequal divisions of the urban landscapes we inhabit. This course invites students to consider how these landscapes—and their respective soundscapes—may shift in the future. Students will create 3-to-5-minute individual sound essays based on recordings collected in fieldwork sessions that respond to the prompt question: how will Hartford sound in the future? The collection of essays will be uploaded onto a webpage linked to Trinity’s Liberal Arts Action Lab and available for public access. This workshop will rely on interdisciplinary readings on sound, especially coming from cultural studies, the arts, and anthropology.

COURSE STRUCTURE: This course consists of three modules that will happen simultaneously over three weeks. The theoretical module will cover literature on soundscapes coming from ecological studies and sounds of the future taking inspiration from Afro and Latinx futurism studies. The second module will focus on ethnographic skills and the use of sound as a tool to record, analyze, and conceptualize urban landscapes. The third module consists on using audio recording tools, and audio editing tools key to build the audio essays.