Anthropology of Sound

Holger Schulze
Anthropology of Sound:
An advanced research seminar
Schedule

Every Thursday
1-3pm

Absalon-page

(tbc)

Concept

How do human beings experience their likewise environment in a specific moment? How do they perceive themselves as listening and sounding creatures under the historically and daily changing conditions of bodies, technologies as well as cultural or historical dispositives?

This seminar focuses on one specific research field in the broader area of sound studies: This field refers to a broader and more recent tradition of an anthropology which tries to leave the essentialist, and euro-, andro- and logocentric approaches to the condition humaine, the human condition behind. They ask: What is a human being, after all the transformations, after all the disruptions, after even an assumed end of traditional concepts of what a human being should or could be?

Drawing from contemporary studies on performativity, on media, but also on science history, the history of spirituality and beliefs, the history of the senses and the history of artistic and design practices this anthropology of sound makes an effort to sketch the life of humanoids on earth under various and often disturbing, often joyful conditions. How do they articulate these experiences? How can we do research on ever transforming ›hearing perspectives‹ (Auinger/Odland)?

Basic references

Wulf, Christoph, 2012, Anthropology: A Continental Perspective, Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Serres, Michel. 1985. Les Cinq Sens. Paris: Grasset.
Auinger, S. and Odland, B., 1998, Hearing Perspective (Think with your Ears). Online www.o-a.info/background/hearperspec.htm
Schulze, Holger, 2012, Situation und Klang. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.
Schulze, Holger, and Christoph Wulf, 2007, Klanganthropologie. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag

Location

KUA2 16.4.11