Colloquium 336 - Music, Sound and Research with Non-Humans

Non-human beings and sounds are constant presences in music and the acoustic world. Gods and spirits give and receive music; performers and composers are inspired by unseen powers; animals and plants communicate and know their environments sonically; and AIs create music and interpret sounds. Humanities and arts research with non-humans asks us to rethink how human ability is circumscribed, what an agent is, how non-human voices have been silenced in secular knowledge regimes, and how our relationships with non-humans create ways of knowing and musicking. This research tutorial is designed to give students direct experience with recognizing the non-human in music and sound research, including creative work. We will encounter artists, religious communities, and soundscapes in the Connecticut River Valley and non-human presences written and recorded in the archive. Students will engage with literature and methodologies from music and sound studies, anthropology, religious studies, and science and technology studies that will enable them not only to “take non-humans seriously” in existing research and creative paradigms, but to understand how those paradigms themselves must change. Over the course of the semester, students will identify potential case studies of research with non-humans. In a six-week, fully funded summer research period, students will create public-facing projects that offer others an encounter with non-human beings and sounds. The research tutorial includes the possibility of presenting work at an international conference and/or co-authoring a peer-reviewed journal article.

This course is part of a model of tutorials at Amherst designed to enable students to engage in substantive research with faculty in the humanities and humanistic social sciences.

Open to juniors and sophomores interested in research. Meets once weekly for three hours. 

Limited to 6 students. Admission with consent of the instructor. Priority given to juniors in case of over-enrollment. Spring Semester. Professor Engelhardt.

How to handle overenrollment: Priority given to juniors in case of over-enrollment

Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: Emphasis on written work, independent research, fieldwork or trips, visual analysis, aural analysis.