Is sound "good" or "bad"? This seminar challenges inherited assumptions about music's presumed goodness. We consider the notion of "bad sounds" from a variety of perspectives: socio-political, economic, ethical, and through the lens of aesthetic theory. What shapes our perceptions and judgements of music and sound? What do we deem good, bad, beautiful, ugly, sublimely incomprehensible, or intolerably inscrutable, and why? Through close listening and critical analysis of music, sounds, as well as scholarly, political, and popular discourses about music, we learn to unravel the complexities of music's "good" and/or "bad" valences, functions, and roles in our shared social world.
3 units · Letter or Credit/No Credit · GER: WAY-A-II
Is sound "good" or "bad"? This seminar challenges inherited assumptions about music's presumed goodness. We consider the notion of "bad sounds" from a variety of perspectives: socio-political, economic, ethical, and through the lens of aesthetic theory. What shapes our perceptions and judgements of music and sound? What do we deem good, bad, beautiful, ugly, sublimely incomprehensible, or intolerably inscrutable, and why? Through close listening and critical analysis of music, sounds, as well as scholarly, political, and popular discourses about music, we learn to unravel the complexities of music's "good" and/or "bad" valences, functions, and roles in our shared social world.
Offered in Autumn 2026 at Stanford University.