Laura Kunreuther, associate professor of anthropology at Bard College, looks at the association between voice, speech, and sound in the context of mass politics and modes of authoritarian power. What does it mean to write about the sounds of participatory democracy at this divisive political moment around the world? Democratic soundscapes draw our attention toward the affective and embodied nature of political performance, aspects of democracy that are often disavowed or disparaged in mainstream discussions of a rational public sphere and the political ethics of communication. There are many critical approaches to understanding the relationship between emotional and aesthetic expression within mass politics and modes of authoritarian power. Kunreuther suggests novel ways of understanding such relationships by tuning our attention to sound.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Anthropology Program,Division of Social Studies,Politics and International Affairs | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |