Do I sound… Authentic? White? Foreign? Poor? Gay? Human? In this course, we explore the voice—spoken, sung, screamed, and written. Treating the voice not as a neutral biological function, but as a cultural object shaped by history, media, race, gender, class, and power, we explore how voices are produced, altered, disguised, replicated, aestheticized, fetishized, and politicized across film, music, literature, and digital media. Through six transhistorical “perspectives” on the voice, we examine: voices that lie, pass, or perform authenticity; voices that emerge from bodies, machines, and collectives; voices imagined as beautiful, dangerous, alien, or divine; voices that are appropriated, synthesized, or refused entirely. This class combines close reading, comparative analysis, and creative-critical inquiry to develop your skills as a listener, reader, writer, and thinker.
Enrollment limited to first-year students. Students enroll concurrently with HUMS 0299, Six Global Perspectives Lab.