IASPM-US International Association for the Study of Popular Music Minneapolis University of Minnesota

I contributed to the IASPM-US conference with a paper on experiences teaching sound studies during the Covid19 pandemic. The program of the conference includes over 300 different papers, plenaries, and workshops and theme is Popular Music in Crisis: „The twenty-second International Association for the Study of Popular Music conference, which will also serve as the annual meeting of IASPM-US, will address the theme of popular music’s role within various sites of crisis, from the most global to the most individual levels, historically and in the present-day.“

The full program and further informations can be found at the IASPM.US-Website

Teaching Sound Studies Online During the Covid-19 Pandemic

In many university courses held during the pandemic, lecturers experienced that contact with students via videoconferencing systems was heavily reduced in contrast to face-to-face courses, despite many pragmatic advantages. However, during a seminar on Sound Studies, advantages also emerged. Thus, core positions of Sound Studies could be conveyed by making use of the fact that each student was in his or her own room on the one hand and the media-technical conditions of their interconnection on the other. During one session participants were asked to spontaneously select sounding objects that were meaningful to them and that they could access in their environment. Through the subsequent audio-visual perception and discussion of the objects, the following fundamental positions of Sound Studies could be conveyed, among others: Our knowledge of sounds is shaped by cultural clich.s and associated dichotomies between hearing and seeing (Sterne 2003). They are closely linked to our individual perceptions and our „sonic persona“(Schulze 2018). The media-technical transmission channels unfold effects on the contents and beyond (McLuhan 1964), which have an impact on aesthetics as well as on constellations of power (Ismaiel-Wendt 2018). Finally, these approaches seemed to have a positive impact on the well-being of the students during the crisis.