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Pavilion Seminar: Noise

PAVS4500

Fall 2017

Mon 6:15-8:45 PAV VIII B002, and other locations

I. Course Information

ProfessorBonnie Gordon

Email:

Office Hours: by appointment, OCH 203

II. Course Description

What did pundits mean when they described the recent presidential election as noise, sound, and fury? What was the loudest sound imaginable in 1607, when settlers came to Jamestown? Sounds like car alarms, earthquakes, thunder, and jackhammers assault our senses. Music, including punk, noise music, and hip-hop, reaches decibels unimaginable even a hundred years ago. This seminar explores noise from a variety of disciplinary, historical, cultural, and theoretical perspectives. We will read writings on noise and silence from Plato through the contemporary world, and we will discuss the long history of regulating noise and marking it off from music, speech, and sound. We will listen to noise as it relates to power, economics, the environment, love, the body, race, gender, and class. Readings will range from primary sources in the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library to acoustics, environmental science, and journalistic accounts of public debates around noise pollution in our own city. Coursework will also involve listening to a variety of music and sounds through recorded technologies and live experiences. Experiential learning will take place through soundscaping, concert attendance, and making live performances. You may take this class with no musical experience.Through listening, close reading, shared experience, small group work, and other assignments, this course encourages you to craft, share, and discard your interpretations of noise.

III. Learning Objectives

  1. Develop a listening practice that enhances your experience of sound.
  2. Foster an understanding of the concept and affective experience of noise.
  3. Enhance understanding of sound and learn to listen between the lines.
  4. Critically reflect on primary sources and musical performances.

IV. Stuff to Engage (sound, image, word)

Much of the information you need to succeed in this class exists on our Collab site. You can access all the information on this syllabus and more, including detailed assignment prompts (with links for submitting final documents), the course schedule, supplementary readings, and your colleagues’ weekly blog posts.

V. Stuff to Do

Attend class and actively participate. Class time will consist of discussion, group work, individual writing, and listening. Active participation works differently for each student, but everyone must pull their weight.

Prepare for class responsibly. Class time should supplement the reading and listening, and constitute an important part of your learning experience. Class will be fun; you don’t want to miss this. We will sing, dance, watch movies, and even play games.

C0-facilitate discussion. Each week one of you will co-facilitate discussion with me.

Write blog posts. Each week will feature a question for reflection. The prompt may call for a very specific response to a piece of music or a more open-ended creative response. It may be a close reading of a primary source. It may ask you to share your personal experiences as they reflect your unique perspective of sound. Posts should be 500-1000 words and submitted to the Collab site no later than Monday at 10:00 am. If,occasionally, a prompt makes you feel that you would rather not share publically, you may email the response to the professor.

VI. Stuff That Gets Assessed: These activities give you the opportunity to demonstrate what you have learned about sound and music making. More detailed prompts will be provided later in the course.

Quick Writing and other Exercises. These are quick writing assignments, responses to questions inspired by the reading. Exercises include written or oral responses to lecture questions, cold calls, video, visual, or audio prompts. These will happen throughout the semester. (20%)

Civic Connections (15%) This requirement is meant to encourage you to connect our class with things happening in Charlottesville. It is designed to get you off of Grounds. You have to do one of the following things and you may do them in groups.This is due October 9!

1. Attend a public meeting off grounds. This might be City Council, Dialogue on Race, or Community Forum. Write a 1-2 page commentary that connects the experience to the course.

2. Visit one of the contested monuments or the ever-growing memorial to Heather Heyer. Spend an hour there, and write about what you hear. Write a 1-2 page commentary that relates to the concept of noise.

Primary Source Project (20%) You will each choose a primary source, related to the concept of noise, to explore. You may do this in teams. The final product will be a blog post modeled on Special Collections blogs at UVa.

October 16: Choose your primary source

November 6: Final product and presentation

Final Project:Sound Study (25%) The goal of this is to make you think deeply about a sonic issue and to use your analytical skills. You will write a 10-12 page essay that analyzes a sonic event, practice, artifact, or technology. It could be a kind of music, it could be a musical event, it could be a space. The main idea is that you have to start from listening. The project must include some engagement with the ideas in the course and a combination of primary and secondary sources.

Due in stages.Final Project due December 10

Class Participation and Citizenship (20%)

VII. Course Policies (These may change)

Electronic Devices:Please use technology respectfully; if the seminar has too much Facebook, Zappos, etc., I reserve the right to ban laptops and smart phones. Studies have shown that hand written notes are the most effective.

Communication:I will do my best to respond to you in 24 hours. Please practice proper email etiquette with me. Include a subject line and a proper salutation.

Attendance is required.

Academic Honesty: The development of the Internet has provided students with historically unparalleled opportunities for conducting research swiftly and comprehensively. The availability of these materials does not, however, release the student from appropriately citing sources where appropriate or applying standard rules associated with avoiding plagiarism. Specifically, the instructor will be expecting to review papers written by students drawing ideas and information from various sources (cited appropriately), presented generally in the student's words after careful analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. An assembly of huge blocks of other individuals’ existing material, even when cited, does not constitute an appropriate representation of this expectation. Uncited, plagiarized material is considered a violation of the honor code. If you are ever confused as to what constitutes plagiarism, please see your instructor.

Observance of Religious Holidays: This course will make every effort to accommodate all students who, because of religious obligations, have conflicts with scheduled exams, assignments, or other required attendance. Whenever possible, students should notify me at least two weeks in advance of the conflict to request special accommodation.

Disability Accommodations: If you qualify for accommodations because of a disability, please let me know so that your needs may be addressed.

Interpersonal Violence (cited from Green Dot): As a faculty member, I support a safe and violence-free campus. I believe violence is not OK, and I will find a way to do or say something in any situation that feels like it could lead to violence. How can I support you to do the same? I am committed to supporting and encouraging students, staff, and faculty to take responsibility for safety on our campus. I believe we can all play a role in preventing violence. We are all bystanders and we can make choices to contribute to a safer campus. Because I know that interpersonal violence will impact the lives of my students, I am committed to violence prevention and campus safety. Please ask me how you can contribute. If you or someone you know experiences stalking, partner violence or sexual assault, please know you are not alone. There are resources that can help: and

Standards of Engagement and Accountability

Be respectful of others

Engage in active listening; ask follow-up questions, respond to each other

Be mindful of how much space you occupy

Be willing to say “I don’t know”

Use evidence to back up assertions

Be patient with each other

Respect each other’s time

Do the reading

VIII. Weekly Schedule (subject to change)

September 4:Jefferson and Black Noise

  • Thomas Jefferson, “Query XIV: The administration of justice and the description of the laws,” from Notes on the State of Virginia, 192-202;
  • Craig Barton, “Foreword” and “Duality and Invisibility: Race and Memory in the Urbanism of theAmerican South,” in Craig Barton, ed.,Sites of Memory: Perspectives on Architecture and Race (2001), xiv-xviand 1-12

Homework: UVa, the City of Charlottesville, other institutions of higher education, and the media reverberate with statements on and to Charlottesville in the wake of August 11-12. Write your own response. This can be in the form of an open letter, an editorial, a blog post, poem etc. As the University and City work through this, we’ll need to listen between and around the noise. Please email this to me directly, and post it on the Collab page. (The page will be functional by Wednesday)

September 11: Protest and Rebellion

  • Jefferson on Rebellion at the University of Virginia (primary source)
  • UCARE Call to Action, 1-15
  • Claudrena N. Harold, “‘Of the Wings of Atalanta’: The Struggle for African American Studies at the University of Virginia, 1969–1995,”Journal of African American Studies 16, no. 1 (2012): 41-69.
  • Black Fire at UVa:

Homework: Write 500-1000 words about a protest or heated civic meeting you have been a part of.

September 18

  • Plato, TheLaws Book III, 701-705,
  • Plato, The Republic Book III, 396-403,
  • Aristotle On the Heavens,book 2, parts 9-11

Homework: Write 500-1000 words about an experience of noise. It need not be sonic.

September 25: Fascism, Nazism, Noise

  • Nancy S. Love, Trendy Fascism: White Power Music and the Future of Democracy (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2016).

Homework:Create a “Unite the Right” Playlist. It should have 5-10 songs. Write two paragraphs explaining your playlist.

October 2: NO CLASS FALL BREAK

October 9:Special Collections Introduction

  • CIVIC CONNECTIONS ASSIGNMENT DUE

October 16:Archive Noise

  • Katrina Martin, “The Noise in the Silence: Radio Haiti During the Coup Years,”
  • Cara Buckley, “Working or Playing Indoors, New Yorkers Face an Unabated Roar,” NYT,
  • Carlo Patrão, “Listening to the City of Light: An interview with Sound Recordist Des Coulam,”Sounding Out!,
  • 1920s Soundscape Project, The Roaring ‘Twenties, Designers StatementLaunch Project
  • Hector Berlioz, “Euphonia,” Museum of Imaginary Musical Instruments,
  • Mack Hagood, “Quiet Comfort: Noise, Otherness, and the Mobile Production of Personal Space,” American Quarterly 63, no. 3 (2011): 573-589. (Reread we never discussed!)

Homework: Write 1000 word response to one of the assigned readings.

October 23:Environmental Noise, Whales, Noise Pollution, and More

  • Benjamin M. Van Doren, Kyle G. Horton, Adrian M. Doktor, Holger Klinck, Susan Elbin, and Andrew Farnsworth, “High intensity urban light installation dramatically alters nocturnal bird migration”
  • Erwin Nemeth et al., “Birdsong and Anthropogenic Noise: Vocal Constraints May Explain Why Birds Sing Higher-frequency Songs in Cities,” Proceedings of the Royal Society;
  • Jane Brody, “Scientist at Work: Katy Payne; Picking up Mammals’ Deep Notes,”

October 30:TBA

November 6: Special Collections Presentations

November 13

  • Monteverdi/Artusi Controversy
  • Giovanni Maria Artusi, excerpt from Artusi, or, Of the Imperfections of Modern Music (1600)
  • Giulio Cesare Monteverdi, “Explanation of the Letter Printed in the Fifth Book of Madrigals” (1607)
  • Duke Ellington, Interview in Los Angeles on Jump for Joy, Opera, and Dissonance as a “Way of Life” (1941)
  • Paul Hegarty, “Preface” and “First,” Noise/Music: A History, ix-19.

Listening:

  • Duke Ellington, “Conga Brava”
  • Monteverdi, “Cor mio mentre vi miro”

November 20

  • Toni Morrison, Beloved

Homework: Share four quotations about sound/noise with your classmates by Monday morning at 10:00 am.

November 27: TBA

December 4: Jefferson School/Vinegar Hill field trip