Canada, as a country, is only ten years older than the phonograph recording machine—is it therefore possible to hear post-Confederation Canadian history “as it really was”?
This seminar probes the potential of a sonic history of contemporary Canada, and how that might help us understand such topics as settler-Indigenous relations, immigration, multiculturalism, resource extraction, regionalism, and nationalism. Framed by a critical engagement with Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer’s concept of the “soundscape,” this course will ask how Canadians have both instilled and defied a sense of imagined community through sound and music across the sixteen decades of post-Confederation history.
Classes will be driven by media-rich engagement with recorded sound as a primary and secondary source. We will pay attention to the global circulation of recorded sound and the ways that sound technology mediates our access to and creation of historical knowledge.
Students can expect traditional written assignments alongside creative sound-centric assessment. No prior training in music is necessary—only your ears.
