tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-42001479450407025572024-03-14T03:46:46.130-04:00Sustainable MusicA research blog on the subject of sustainability, sound, music, culture and environment.Jeff Todd Titonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10384565652765905576noreply@blogger.comBlogger246125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4200147945040702557.post-26662912931013182052024-02-28T12:14:00.010-05:002024-03-03T13:38:09.896-05:00The trouble with the trouble with wilderness<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSKhfP9YzDqDn9ud1yZtjyj3mAcNs4MucKCG98sB_Lwl-GpqOHKEOicVAlXQRBnG4GqwfEH1Dpa8C2vUK0ixIBJFyfpSlTrRcyt3iDT3CPrsaXeiwBL59sjeEJcxwILPRJ-mOgv8E8IUzgGtVfCaNRI_Ww9dzJcT3Qj9oFds4JmrADVVTC9XAFmmyjI5cl/s1600/Roaring_Falls_Glacier_Bay_NP.JPG" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSKhfP9YzDqDn9ud1yZtjyj3mAcNs4MucKCG98sB_Lwl-GpqOHKEOicVAlXQRBnG4GqwfEH1Dpa8C2vUK0ixIBJFyfpSlTrRcyt3iDT3CPrsaXeiwBL59sjeEJcxwILPRJ-mOgv8E8IUzgGtVfCaNRI_Ww9dzJcT3Qj9oFds4JmrADVVTC9XAFmmyjI5cl/w400-h300/Roaring_Falls_Glacier_Bay_NP.JPG" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Roaring Falls, Glacier Bay National Park. Courtesy National Park Service.<br /></span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> Toward the end of the last century, William Cronon deconstructed the prevailing definition of American wilderness, as nature apart from the influence of humankind. Henry Nash Smith's classic in American studies, <i>Virgin Land</i> (1950), had summed up the role that the myth of the frontier, as unexplored and unsettled wilderness, had played in American life. As long as American settlers, Cronon argued, had conceived of the American frontier as wilderness, the land was available for possession and settlement. The trouble with wilderness, Cronon pointed out, was that it ignored millennia of Native American settlement on this same land; indeed, Natives were erased from the land both literally, and then figuratively by the idea of wilderness. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span> </span>But when did this particular idea of wilderness actually arise? Was it present during the days of settlement when the Natives were being erased? It would not appear so. William Bradford, Colonial Governor of Massachusetts, described a different kind of frontier: a "hideous wilderness, filled with wild beasts and wild men." The wilderness Bradford described was populated with Natives and animals that were a threat to the settlers. Wilderness was not, for the early settlers, land absent the hand of mankind. It would seem that while the idea of wilderness as "the natural world" apart from human influence was present among intellectuals like Emerson and Thoreau, it didn't become fully established in American culture until the Conservation Movement. Starting in the late 19th century, when National Parks were beginning to be constructed in order to preserve nature, because "it was morally right to do so," as John Muir had argued, this idea of wilderness as land in its natural state became prevalent in American public discourse. Not coincidentally, the Conservation Movement arose at a time when the American Frontier had been formally declared closed (1890). <br /></span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span> </span>The trouble with the trouble with wilderness, then, is that American settlers had not always conceived of it as empty land ready for possession. It was not, in fact, until it had been fully possessed that the modern idea of wilderness, which Cronon critiqued, came to prevail, fueled by the ideas that were rooted in the Conservation Movement. In effect, Cronon's critique, as he came to recognize, was not so much a critique of American settlement as a critique of the Conservation Movement's idea of wilderness. <br /></span></span>Jeff Todd Titonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10384565652765905576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4200147945040702557.post-53607644213820347982023-12-16T19:56:00.001-05:002023-12-17T16:35:36.224-05:00Keeping Track of Writing Projects -- end of 2023<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhhwydMAIlls9bOXsxsqpY9Er64gmw4t8pKqHJC5eciwz_i60n4bP14J60FVs3mRTvP83AjtU3waOaULlp9lzP_etqun85rrbZwSUNmnSbaWL9B_mJdZDyhBdLQgH-2rrFgKVILAyCe_qxkCj2OGw2YZwRaUSmhwuu2dMUb6oT6ipsxnjSJWXq8rVo8_Aw/s3300/Fig%201%20RW%20Gordon.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3300" data-original-width="2378" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhhwydMAIlls9bOXsxsqpY9Er64gmw4t8pKqHJC5eciwz_i60n4bP14J60FVs3mRTvP83AjtU3waOaULlp9lzP_etqun85rrbZwSUNmnSbaWL9B_mJdZDyhBdLQgH-2rrFgKVILAyCe_qxkCj2OGw2YZwRaUSmhwuu2dMUb6oT6ipsxnjSJWXq8rVo8_Aw/w289-h400/Fig%201%20RW%20Gordon.jpg" width="289" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Robert Winslow Gordon, founder of the Archive of American Folk Song, c. 1923, examining an archeological artifact in California. Courtesy of the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;">An update to keep track of my writing projects has become
an annual event. Since my last update, on Dec. 28, 2022, which writing
projects have progressed, which have been published, and which have seemingly
stagnated? On <a href="https://draft.blogger.com/#"><span style="color: #0000e9;">my
academia.edu page</span></a> and also in my twitter (now X) profile
@jefftoddtiton I suggest that readers who want to know the answer to the
question “What research and writing are you working on?” come to this blog to
find out. Several projects that I'd been working on for years were published in 2023, while one more is in press, and another has been completed but must go through further stages before publication. Here is the list:</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;">1. I’d finished a short essay on musical icons,
introducing a section of a book entitled <i>Social Voices: The Cultural
Politics of Singers Around the Globe, </i>edited by Levi Gibbs,<i> </i>in
2021. <a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p087387">That book was published</a> in September this year by the University of
Illinois Press.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;">2. I’d completed the chapter “Eco-trope or Eco-tripe?
Music Ecology Today” in 2021 for the book<span>
</span><i>Sounds, Ecologies, Musics</i>, edited by Aaron S. Allen and myself,
which was <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/sounds-ecologies-musics-9780197546659?cc=us&lang=en&">published in September of this year</a> by Oxford University Press. Aaron
and I also co-wrote the first chapter, “Diverse Ecologies for Sound and Music
Studies.” The book contains fourteen essays written by scientists, scholars,
environmental activists, and musicians, each concerned with music, sound,
nature, culture and the environment in a time of environmental crisis. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;">3. In 2019 I’d completed my section of “The Sound Commons
and Applied Ecomusicologies,” an article co-authored by Aaron Allen, Taylor
Leapaldt, Mark Pedelty, and myself, for <i>The Routledge Companion to Applied
Musicology</i>, edited by Chris Dromey. <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Companion-to-Applied-Musicology/Dromey/p/book/9780367488246?gclid=Cj0KCQiAsvWrBhC0ARIsAO4E6f-F17oFAgpRmnVh9LQR_AnmsBaQNXeUVZgMB2eVMngOXkz25hn9-cMaAlMPEALw_wcB#">The book was published</a> in 2023. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;">4. “Ecojustice and Ontological Turns: a Response to
Marshall and DeAngeli.” This was part of an E-seminar that the <i>Ecomusicology
Review</i> has been conducting in the fall of 2021 within the ecomusicology
Google Group. Kimberly Marshall and Emma DeAngeli wrote an essay to which
Sebastian Hochmeyer responded, whereupon they wrote a rejoinder. Mark Pedelty
followed with a second response. Aaron Allen asked me if I too would respond,
and so I wrote a brief response, starting with my reaction to a disagreement
between Marshall and DeAngeli on one hand, and Hachmeyer on the other, over the
relevance of the so-called ontological turn in anthropology to the project of
social justice. Rather than take sides, I proposed that ecojustice would
resolve the disagreement by including social justice in the larger framework of
relationality and by extending reciprocity and respect to all living beings,
not just humans. This is congruent with the writings of Indigenous scholars
such as Robin Kimmerer and Zoe Todd in past dozen years or so as well even
though they don’t use that term. Whether these essays and responses and
rejoinder will be published in <i>Ecomusicology Review</i>, as Aaron Allen had
intended at the time, I don't know.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;">5. In early 2022 Robert Baron, on behalf of the Fellows
of the American Folklore Society, invited me to contribute an essay to a
forthcoming issue of the <i>Journal of American Folklore</i>, to be derived
from my 2021 oral presentation on folklife, heritage and environment for an
American Folklore Society webinar. I completed the essay in October,
2022. Its title is "Folklife, Heritage, and the Environment: A Critique of
Natural Capital, Ecosystem Services, and Settler Ecology." This
10,000-word essay is in the proof stage now and is scheduled for publication
in the <i>Journal of American Folklore</i>, Vol. 137, no. 543, pp. 61-84,
sometime in the spring of 2024. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;">6. In January of 2023 Ross Cole invited me to
contribute a chapter on “Observing and Collecting” for <i>The Cambridge
Companion to Folk Music</i>. Other prospective authors included Phil Bohlman,
Rachel Mundy, Peggy Seeger, Caroline Bithell, Dave Harker, and Jake Blount. I
haven’t often accepted invitations to write on assigned topics, but this one
interested me and, as Ross and I discussed why he’d asked me, and as I thought
about what I might say about the history of observation, collecting, and fieldwork in folklore, folklife,
and especially folksong studies, I decided to see if I'd find the writing
congenial. As I began I found myself with quite a bit to say. I completed a draft over the summer, then revised it a little in November to bring it within the 7000-word
limit. It contains the swashbuckling illustration, which stands atop this blog
entry, of folksong collector Robert Winslow Gordon, who in 1928 established the
Archive of American Folksong at the Library of Congress. Ross was happy with
the chapter and has it now. After he gathers up all the chapters for the book,
I assume it will go through an external review process, then further revision,
and finally it will be published, I'm guessing sometime in 2025 or 2026. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;">Among the lectures and seminars I gave during this past
year was a webinar lecture for the Society for Ethnomusicology. The title was
“Applying ethnomusicology: from the study of people making music to the study
of beings making sound,” and it was broadcast on May 4 and 11. The lecture
contrasted my 1989 definition of ethnomusicology as the study of people making
music, first presented in 1989 at an ethnomusicology conference and later
published in the 3rd edition of <i>Worlds of Music</i> (1993), with my shifting
interests in this century toward the study of beings making sound. I've put the
text of the lecture in the section on conference presentations on my
academia.edu page. </span></span></p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Jeff Todd Titonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10384565652765905576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4200147945040702557.post-13223694996526463082023-11-06T12:43:00.004-05:002023-11-06T12:55:40.795-05:00Balance of Nature as Ecological Imaginary (AFS presentation)<p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBnwcYjQB0lhWkmGyOfb97QkAbVYn1H6VbWVgSi82upBHbkig4Y7fIRcNavDsfPgR3AizIWL5SkUxmiq5yKwVzwCdWUMChOiVFwp80PtNhJmfHTdmuOc46LIlTXCMVxCZOR5METOD-SFKi1LRIa9EBIsl-92_L6B2GHHkRTrgP2caLhFNHxH8vE_32kwb9/s1024/Tarangire%20National%20Park,%20Tanzania.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="683" data-original-width="1024" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBnwcYjQB0lhWkmGyOfb97QkAbVYn1H6VbWVgSi82upBHbkig4Y7fIRcNavDsfPgR3AizIWL5SkUxmiq5yKwVzwCdWUMChOiVFwp80PtNhJmfHTdmuOc46LIlTXCMVxCZOR5METOD-SFKi1LRIa9EBIsl-92_L6B2GHHkRTrgP2caLhFNHxH8vE_32kwb9/w400-h266/Tarangire%20National%20Park,%20Tanzania.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tarangire National Park, Tanzania. Courtesty of Zenith 4237, Wikimedia Commons.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br /> </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"> <i>On Saturday, November 4, our DERT (Diverse Environmental Research Team) group led a forum at the American Folklore Society annual conference on the subject of Ecological Imaginaries. My brief presentation was on the idea of the balance of nature as a Euro-American ecological imaginary. Here's what I said:</i></span></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>I want to speak about one of Euro-America’s
enduring myths, the ecological imaginary that is called the balance of nature.
By myth here I don’t mean something supernatural. I mean a metanarrative that
imbues history with teleology; that is, nature exhibits aesthetic and ethical
purpose. Nature is said to be balanced in the sense that just as water seeks
its own level, nature possesses a kind of economy. In other words, left pretty
much to its own devices, nature finds an equilibrium about which it can sustain
itself indefinitely. In scientific terms, balanced natural ecosystems are
self-regulating, like a pendulum, or like a thermostat moving the temperature about
a set point. A corollary is the diversity-stability hypothesis: that ecosystem
stability increases with biodiversity.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Of
course, you’ve heard of the virtues of balance in daily life. We’re told to eat
a balanced diet. If you’ve streamed television lately you’ve surely seen ads
for the dietary supplement called balance of nature, with one pill containing
vegetables and the other fruits in powdered form. Talk about ultra-processed
foods! and yet they’re advertised as healthful. And surely you know the
folkloric expression “don’t keep all your eggs in one basket.” This actually is
a proverbial expression of the diversity-stability hypothesis.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Well,
the balance of nature is an old idea that one can find from ancient and
medieval European history through the Enlightenment and Modernity. About “the
economy of nature” the great naturalist Linnaeus wrote that “Providence not
only aimed at sustaining, but also keeping a just proportion amongst all the
species.” Darwin’s evolutionary natural selection is but a secular expression
of natural balance. In the 20th century, the idea of the ecosystem, with its
food chain and food web, its producers, consumers, and decomposers, became the
model for ecological study, taken as instances of natural balance. Balance of
nature among organisms, populations, communities and ecosystems organized the
major ecology textbooks throughout most of the last century. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Ecology
also provided scientific support for the efforts of conservationists and
environmentalists in the last century. Some ecological scientists, such as
Rachel Carson and Eugene Odom, also became environmentalists and helped bring
about the EPA and its public policies that are intended to protect endangered
species (including ourselves) from pathogenic industrial civilization and
restore ecological balance. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Probably
the most far-reaching contemporary example of natural balance is Gaia. Gaia, as
you know, is the name for the hypothesis that the Earth itself is alive—that
is, that the Earth considered as a whole, all the plants and animals and
geological formations and its atmosphere, is naturally self-regulating and
seeks a sustainable equilibrium. In other words, Gaia represents balance of
nature and diversity-stability writ large. Gaia theory has been endorsed by
environmentalists of all stripes, from practical problem-solvers to so-called
deep ecologists.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>There
is, however, a problem with balance of nature in the 21st century. Not only do
the vast majority of ecological scientists not accept Gaia, balance of nature
has been discarded by ecological science. As early as 1973 ecologist Robert May
demonstrated that the more diverse was an ecosystem, the more fragile it was.
It now seems as if stability does not depend on biodiversity. Other ecologists
observed environmental complexity that could only be explained by chaos theory,
leading to the current ecosystem paradigm, which indicates that when confronted
with significant disturbances, complex ecosystems disintegrate. Today's
ecological scientists portray the state of nature not in terms of economy and
balance but by its opposite: instability, flux, and complexity (chaos), whether
humankind’s hand is present or absent. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Nevertheless,
the myth of a balanced nature persists among environmentalists and in the
public mind. It even affects public policy. I don’t have time to get into
details here, but consider whether, if and when carbon neutrality or net zero
emissions is actually achieved, the Earth’s climate will swing back into its
previous, desirable balance point, or remain in its then-current regime and continue to wreak havoc. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Summing
up, then: balance of nature is a powerful ecological imaginary. Balance of
nature is also a national myth, the kind of myth that folklorists such as Alan
Dundes wrote about in <i>Work Hard and You Shall Be Rewarded</i> (the Horatio
Alger myth) or Dick Dorson wrote about, </span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">such as the frontier myth,</span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"> when his topic was folklore in America
versus American folklore. The expressive culture of
balance of nature offers a fertile field for folkloric exploration, whether the
subject is dietary supplements or climate change. Many of us are going to end
with a question for everyone in the room. Mine is this: how does balance of
nature figure in your ecological imaginary, and how does it figure in the
ecological imaginaries of the people who are your field partners?</span></p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</font></style></span></p>Jeff Todd Titonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10384565652765905576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4200147945040702557.post-200117802281307282023-09-30T22:03:00.014-04:002023-10-17T17:41:55.282-04:00Ecological Imaginaries 3<p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHfYL9qIuMzwqOCItMnbiyxi9jFyO7i_WjXH_XVVQ-8sAXXH4l_04mLU2e3eNxMYmbXuaWLOb9dDDaU8GUxfVSewVIGCwGOSPpanVCsB15HIq141uo5wrakgCRRLxjYo6hafCJlz-KhqRiEuM2rsoG2-wIMukueZqSAYfIMV_tEpv0Gi22Y7cmSWjS-dAg/s1202/Balance%20of%20Nature.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1042" data-original-width="1202" height="346" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHfYL9qIuMzwqOCItMnbiyxi9jFyO7i_WjXH_XVVQ-8sAXXH4l_04mLU2e3eNxMYmbXuaWLOb9dDDaU8GUxfVSewVIGCwGOSPpanVCsB15HIq141uo5wrakgCRRLxjYo6hafCJlz-KhqRiEuM2rsoG2-wIMukueZqSAYfIMV_tEpv0Gi22Y7cmSWjS-dAg/w400-h346/Balance%20of%20Nature.png" width="400" /></a></span></div><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> If you’ve watched much cable news or streamed other programs lately you’ve probably seen the ads for a dietary supplement called “Balance of Nature.” These are pills that, even though they are not whole foods, are said to contain nutrients present in fruits and vegetables. The name of this product benefits from two widely-held and related beliefs: one, that people should eat a balanced diet; and two, that the natural world is (or should be) balanced: it is self-regulating and in the absence of significant human meddling an ecosystem such as a forest corrects disturbances and moves over time in the direction of balance, as for example in the fluctuating populations of a predator species and its prey. <br /> These two beliefs are so widely held that they are thought to go without saying. But if one is asked about them, the usual reply is that according to scientific studies, a diet of too high in its proportion of fat, carbohydrate, or protein has been shown to be unhealthful. Similarly, scientists have observed and studied self-regulation and dynamic but balanced equilibria in natural ecosystems such as lakes for more than a hundred years. Nevertheless, each of these beliefs has undergone significant challenge. Think, for example, of high protein or low carbohydrate diets; these are not balanced in the usual sense, yet they are said to be more healthful. As regards balance in the natural world, scientists for the past fifty years have found so many instances in which nature absent meaningful human influence does not return to a previous balance after significant disturbance but, rather, changes to a different state or regime with different components and a different kind of equilibrium, that within the field of ecological science the idea of natural balance has by now been discredited and abandoned. I return to "balance of nature" because some members of our DERT (diverse environmentalist research team) will be speaking in a forum five weeks from now on the subject of ecological imaginaries, and as I wrote in this blog a year ago, balance of nature is an ecological imaginary--and I intend to say some more things about it. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Here, then, a few further thoughts. Despite it having been discarded by ecological scientists, the belief in natural balance persists in the public sphere and especially among people concerned with the current environmental crisis. Oversimplified, the idea goes something like this: human beings have so disturbed the natural world through extraction of natural resources like fossil fuels and the ensuing emissions, unsustainable economic growth and endless construction that destroys natural habitat, and so on and on, that the result is an environmental crisis whose symptoms are climate change and species extinction. The natural world is obviously now out of balance but if we stop emitting carbon and stop destroying habitat the world will come back into balance. As a result, environmentalists are keen to reverse the major cause of this unbalance and replace fossil fuels with the natural energy of solar and wind power.<br /> My point here isn’t to promote or discourage dietary supplements or to agree or disagree with the opposing views of ecological scientists and environmentalists concerning natural balance, but, rather, to consider the idea of natural balance as an “ecological imaginary”—that is, a network of ideas and beliefs that a particular group of people have about the natural world, what it is, how it operates, and how we should behave in relation to it. Such an ecological imaginary rises in contemporary America to the status of cultural myth. By myth I don’t mean to imply a superstition or something false, as myth is commonly understood, but rather a belief so powerful and pervasive that it usually goes unquestioned, regardless whether it is true or false. A contemporary example of such a myth is the belief that continuous economic growth is required for national prosperity and wellbeing. American myths that were powerful when I was younger included "e pluribus unum" (out of many, one) -- that is, the melting pot; and the idea that hard work and virtue will be rewarded because America was a "land of opportunity" -- equal opportunity. Today the opposite of those myths are prevalent: that instead of assimilation and harmony Americans are increasingly fractured and at odds with one another; and that due to growing inequality of opportunity, rewards come from not from diligence and integrity but from gaming the system. <br /> I associate the folklorist Richard Dorson with the idea that these American cultural myths are examples of folklore; that is, they are better understood as folk beliefs than as belonging to the world of verifiable fact. </span><span style="font-size: medium;">I
haven't yet found just where Dorson's wrote about these myth-symbols as
folklore. He did write about American (national) folklore, however, and
in a 1978 article, "American Folklore vs. Folklore in America," he wrote
briefly about the frontier and its influence on the formation of
American folk traditions. </span><span style="font-size: medium;">As J. L. Austin would have said, these folk beliefs and traditions are “performative”: they were affirmed in the process of being enacted, and they brought about change in the world by virtue of their performances as speech acts. As a graduate student after World War II, Dorson had been immersed in the so-called “myth-symbol school” of American Studies. Its guiding idea was that Americans shaped their lives on the basis of deeply held beliefs related to certain symbols, such as the American frontier, thought to encourage a belief in the abundance of natural resources, as well as personality traits such as courage, forbearance and ingenuity, along with the belief that merit was based on ability, not birth or status. If he were alive today he would say that Americans perform their beliefs in expressive cultural forms related to those symbols. Examples would be environmentalists performing their beliefs by protesting the progress of fossil fuel pipelines, and rural people sharing stories about the land and sustainability of its resources, what Mary Hufford has called a “narrative ecology.”<br /> To return to “balance of nature,” then, as both an ecological imaginary and a folk belief that environmentalists perform and ecological scientists debunk, is there a way to reconcile these opposing viewpoints? In the next entry I will discuss one possible way to do this, looking at different ways that the two scientists who proposed the Gaia Hypothesis, Lynn Margulis and James Lovelock, have approached planet Earth as a holistic entity. It turns on the difference between function (Margulis) and purpose (Lovelock). <br /></span></p>Jeff Todd Titonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10384565652765905576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4200147945040702557.post-24099376492909599802023-07-31T14:05:00.003-04:002023-07-31T14:08:53.627-04:00Sustainable Colleges and Universities: the Maine problem<p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoB02ct5fMfjQN1z3cZ4b14wtnOWiMWnkc0ezsqsXBBNMAAh-2l4PuRf82t7rt_NQ53Ep7ilaM1XWWhH9CPyAEExjPE4KjfLG7O6a6WbFPECPUTUAQq_8K7RNtqcRA9cWaUR7Cpps5HvjpOZWAMlU1lvk5L1Zc2eXAUc6mamQw5OG9Rmyb0XiZPMH5Neng/s750/U%20of%20Southern%20Maine.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="510" data-original-width="750" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoB02ct5fMfjQN1z3cZ4b14wtnOWiMWnkc0ezsqsXBBNMAAh-2l4PuRf82t7rt_NQ53Ep7ilaM1XWWhH9CPyAEExjPE4KjfLG7O6a6WbFPECPUTUAQq_8K7RNtqcRA9cWaUR7Cpps5HvjpOZWAMlU1lvk5L1Zc2eXAUc6mamQw5OG9Rmyb0XiZPMH5Neng/s320/U%20of%20Southern%20Maine.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The University of Southern Maine<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /> </span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Public education is under fire in Texas, Florida, North
Carolina, Arkansas and elsewhere from political figures who have been trying to implement a
conservative curriculum. The Florida controversy over the Advanced Placement
course in African American History is but one example of many. Media stories
have highlighted the activities of consultant Christopher Rufo, of Hillsdale
College, and other individuals and organizations with a conservative
educational agenda. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Thankfully, this political infection hasn't spread to the
state of Maine but, Maine being a poor New England state with a fiscally frugal population,
the state legislature has gradually strangled public education by <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/change-horizon-umaine-system-struggles-163100343.html">reducing the funding</a> it provides higher education: today 43% of the funding
for the university system, whereas in 1972 it paid 70%. Tuition for private liberal
arts colleges in Maine like Colby and Bowdoin is about $60,000 annually,
whereas for the University of Maine at Orono, the flagship state university, tuition
costs a full-time student only $12,000 per year. Yet, the legislators expect
UMaine somehow to maintain standards and offer a quality education to all who
qualify. In truth, 96% of its applicants are admitted, so there is no question
about qualifying; moreover, more than 40% of the students enrolled in Maine's
higher educational institutions system-wide are first-generation college
students, while more than half of all enrollees qualify for Pell grants,
signaling exceptional financial hardship. Meanwhile, tuition income for the
university is down because overall in-state enrollment at UMaine has slipped in
recent years as much as 25%. This slippage is due partly to a declining
school-age population, but chiefly because the vast majority of Americans now
view higher education vocationally, and they evaluate it not in terms of what
is learned but rather by its financial costs versus benefits. Burgeoning
student debt fuels this attitude and as a result fewer students choose higher
education in Maine and elsewhere. Meanwhile, a liberal arts education at a
private college or university like Bates or Brown is considered a luxury for
the wealthy few whose families have benefited from increasing income
inequality. Although these liberal arts institutions have diversified mightily
in terms of race and ethnicity, to the point that almost half the student body
identifies as people of color, the fact is that they have not diversified
nearly so much economically: most of the minority students come from
middle-class backgrounds, or they were privileged to be identified early for
their abilities and tracked into college-prep high school courses.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The land-grant universities in every state, including the
state of Maine, were established in the 19th century so that students would be
able to learn not only the career-oriented "useful arts" but also the
humanities and the sciences. They would learn about the broader world outside
the narrow compass of family, place, and personal history; they would learn
about the past so they could live more effectively in the future. The idea was
that more broadly educated individuals made the best leaders, and that all
would contribute to society as knowledgeable and effective citizens. This higher
aim has been all but lost, and the result is obvious: an electorate
increasingly ignorant of science and of history. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;">To combat financial hardship, the University of Southern
Maine, the second largest campus in the state after UMaine Orono, has just
<a href="https://news.yahoo.com/change-horizon-umaine-system-struggles-163100343.html">announced a strategic plan</a> aimed at belt-tightening. The plan proposes to
eliminate courses with low enrollments. However, low enrollments are a fact of
life in specialized, advanced courses, particularly in graduate schools. Low-enrollment
courses are indeed expensive to teach, so universities fund them, as it were,
with high-enrollment undergraduate courses to even things out. Moreover,
universities have been spending less per course by hiring part-time faculty
members (adjunct professors) whose salaries are poverty-level low, and who
receive fewer or no perquisites: no medical benefits, for example. Fifty years
ago part-timers accounted for less than 20% of university faculty; today that
figure is more than 50%. Such has already been the belt-tightening in response
to decades of lower and lower funding from state legislatures. And while colleges
and universities were pruning full-time faculty, they were expanding the number
of full-time administrators. Most of these institutions are now top-heavy with
managers, deans, associate deans, assistant deans, development officers,
assistant development officers, financial managers, and so on. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The implementation of free (or low-cost) public education in
the United States was a radical move more than 150 years ago. The idea behind
it, of course, is that a good education is a right, not a privilege; and that its
benefits would accrue not just to individuals but to the nation as a whole.
Many of our citizens and political leaders appear to have forgotten this. The
solution to the financial problems facing public education today is not charter
schools, nor is it belt-tightening, nor is it a curriculum determined by
political agenda. Rather, the solution is to restore the higher funding levels
of fifty years ago, to increase the percentage of full-time faculty, and to reduce
the number of managerial positions. <br /></span></p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</span></style><span style="font-family: georgia;"> <br /></span></p>Jeff Todd Titonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10384565652765905576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4200147945040702557.post-25776896938004402022023-06-30T21:07:00.007-04:002023-06-30T21:10:06.319-04:00Mid-year update on a couple of writing projects<p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;">Two of my long-term writing projects are finishing up now: a book that has been in production at the publisher (Oxford University Press) for several months, and the other (an article to be published early in 2024 in the <i>Journal of American Folklore</i>) has just undergone copyediting.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;">The book, <i>Sounds, Ecologies, Musics</i>, which I've co-edited with Aaron Allen, now <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/sounds-ecologies-musics-9780197546659?cc=us&lang=en&">has a website</a>. Rather than describe the book and contributing authors here, may I suggest that readers check out the website where that information is available? Regarding the production, it's been a pretty long slog, what with having to work with our contributing authors (and ourselves) through revisions at the copyedit and proof stages, and also to work with the production company that Oxford is using, which is located in India. There have been numerous backs-and-forths, most of which were routine although time consuming. The one exception was a late reflection by one of the authors that something written could possibly result in a slap suit, so as a result several paragraphs had to be re-written at the last minute, the number of paragraphs in the chapter increased, and the changes rippled through the rest of the production. Luckily, that wasn't Aaron's and my problem to take care of. But we did have to make various corrections and additions to the Index, which we had (wisely) farmed out to a professional indexer. At the moment the production team is working with our corrections to the second proofs, and we will need to make sure these are properly implemented, before we can sign off and they can put the book further along and into the queue for printing later this summer. <span> </span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisFPWjz323Pev-SuTXI9TsqzrDMddJsa2pXsPaSWUMIMOTpQS_YCVvSa6ePKIZWTAU9xD5lBXboGXLx2BeRblsZaytRqyczzcQxe_eE2tcoD9d_ulYeXXgvYfXl_QasPy-IKYmXKisS4XdueOm_NOl2_gn_7dmQ0knrQaysWGjgy8O0g3Ai-IVyJsW_Ru1/s828/1%20Lobster%20fishing%20in%20a%20peapod%20lo-res.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="536" data-original-width="828" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisFPWjz323Pev-SuTXI9TsqzrDMddJsa2pXsPaSWUMIMOTpQS_YCVvSa6ePKIZWTAU9xD5lBXboGXLx2BeRblsZaytRqyczzcQxe_eE2tcoD9d_ulYeXXgvYfXl_QasPy-IKYmXKisS4XdueOm_NOl2_gn_7dmQ0knrQaysWGjgy8O0g3Ai-IVyJsW_Ru1/w400-h259/1%20Lobster%20fishing%20in%20a%20peapod%20lo-res.png" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Lobster fishing in a peapod, as was done in the 1800s. Courtesy of the Northeast Folklore Archives, University of Maine.<br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;">The article for the <i>Journal of American Folklore</i>, which I've mentioned on this blog before, is a critique of the natural capital/ecosystem services philosophy of environmental planning which in turn affects the way natural (environmental) heritage is framed for tourism, an activity (tourism, especially cultural tourism) that public folklorists have been deeply involved in for several decades. In effect, ecosystem services (that is, the services that the natural environment provides for people) has for more than a hundred years been regarded in terms of costs and benefits, an economic equation that does not play well with the cultural values that tourists, particularly ecotourists, place upon travel. At the same time, the natural capital/ecosystem services framework is applied to certain extractive industries, such as ocean fishing, downplaying the experiential folklife of the workers themselves, whose relationship with the work often transcends economic considerations, especially when the work becomes a way of life and forges cultural value beyond price for a close-knit community, while simultaneously damaging the environment. This summary is of course very abstruse, and so in a later blog post closer to publication I will offer some more concrete detail about this critique; but its major outline should be familiar to readers of this blog because these ideas about the tension between economic value and cultural values have been swirling around here for a dozen or more years. Meanwhile, the article has just undergone copyediting and my review, and the ball is back in the editors' court as the manuscript moves toward the proofs stage. <br /></span><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"> <br /></span></p>Jeff Todd Titonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10384565652765905576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4200147945040702557.post-38797873232214565812023-05-31T22:34:00.002-04:002023-06-01T19:51:24.274-04:00Will orcas sink whale-watching boats because of noise pollution?<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2niIVIZ-7dsdAQU4GebPPp30OQ8--UzUThcpgFSMPrqQfyF0cHW6wS-th7FwsPc4ZVw_5BMQEjU0KyUjpXrr9wcGpSut_DiUGefp8OKBQpHcX1akYOkeyE-587FTQZKeGGdfwwVp7FUnSMyukslfDml_7cFY1B9ImXDD9DbwnbyvvDUvsHXYw8lXhAA/s1083/1083px-Killerwhales_jumping.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1083" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2niIVIZ-7dsdAQU4GebPPp30OQ8--UzUThcpgFSMPrqQfyF0cHW6wS-th7FwsPc4ZVw_5BMQEjU0KyUjpXrr9wcGpSut_DiUGefp8OKBQpHcX1akYOkeyE-587FTQZKeGGdfwwVp7FUnSMyukslfDml_7cFY1B9ImXDD9DbwnbyvvDUvsHXYw8lXhAA/w400-h266/1083px-Killerwhales_jumping.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Orca whales jumping. Photo by Robert Pittman, Wikimedia Commons.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span>
<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Even if
they haven't read the novel, most everyone knows the ending of <i>Moby-Dick</i>:
the white whale sinks Captain Ahab's whaling boat, the Pequod, and all perish
save Ishmael, who survives to tell the tale. So it may not have been entirely surprising
to hear recent news reports of orcas (killer whales) attacking and seriously
damaging fishing boats--already twelve boats this year. As it happens orcas have been
well studied by not only by biologists but also by ecomusicologists interested
in the sounds they make. Orcas find their food by echolocation; that is, by
sending out sound signals and listening for the echoes to located prey. Orcas,
like other whales, also communicate with one another via sound. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Ecomusicologist
Mark Pedelty made <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2ANuWWfXCM&ab_channel=Ecosong">a documentary film</a>, <i>Sentinels of Silence</i>, about how the propeller
noise from powerful whale watching boats in the Salish Sea (the waters off the
northwest coast of the United States and the southeast coast of Canada) upsets
the orcas that live there, making it impossible for them to locate their food
or one another. Whale-watching is a major tourist business in the area, but
orcas are an already endangered species. This intrusion into the ocean sound
commons undoubtedly makes it more difficult for orcas to survive. Animal rights
activists fought the whale-watching industry and, with the help of Pedelty's
film, were able to convince the government to regulate the noise pollution from
the whale boats.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> The dozen
orca attacks this year all occurred off the coasts of Spain and Portugal. Some <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/05/28/orcas-sinking-boats-attacking/">scientists hypothesize</a> that these orcas may be attacking those fishing boats for vengeance: either
because the boats are interfering with the orcas' food supply, because the orcas get entangled
in the fishing gear, or even because one of them was struck by a fishing boat. None of the scientists mentioned the possibility that propeller noise was a reason for the orca attacks. The
scientists attribute agency to the orcas and have observed a female named White
Gladis "teaching" the other orcas to attack the boats. This behavior
hasn't yet been observed in the Salish Sea, but it's not beyond possibility. </span></span></p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</span></font></style></p>Jeff Todd Titonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10384565652765905576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4200147945040702557.post-59197329088234459282023-04-30T12:11:00.002-04:002023-04-30T20:30:19.285-04:00Global Webinar: Why I Do Applied Ethnomusicology. May 4 & 11, 2023.<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh03l7FLcvCNo4yszhi6rdM33bgUg4XKrhsIFHqXe3fs4IbkoqU64QtIHSv4QQj-BQhIj4IhNG015LDf3AgTBdD4ojlpuW1LY0BVEPnah1aBYFw55qfOFo52I_7yOHbQETfiCYfTwu4KR5PrDlehDxGTBocKPN7mG7rialnLL4Dmlph9JOk4tPak-ufEw/s1800/Jeff%20and%20Lazy%20Bill%20at%20Peoples%20Park%201970.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1579" data-original-width="1800" height="351" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh03l7FLcvCNo4yszhi6rdM33bgUg4XKrhsIFHqXe3fs4IbkoqU64QtIHSv4QQj-BQhIj4IhNG015LDf3AgTBdD4ojlpuW1LY0BVEPnah1aBYFw55qfOFo52I_7yOHbQETfiCYfTwu4KR5PrDlehDxGTBocKPN7mG7rialnLL4Dmlph9JOk4tPak-ufEw/w400-h351/Jeff%20and%20Lazy%20Bill%20at%20Peoples%20Park%201970.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Jeff Titon (electric guitar, left) and Lazy Bill Lucas (electric piano, right) performing at the People's Park, Dinkytown, Minneapolis, 1970. My work in applied ethnomusicology was an outgrowth of my friendship with Bill Lucas.</span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /> <span> </span></span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span> The Applied Ethnomusicology Section of the Society for Ethnomusicology is sponsoring a global webinar, May 4 & 11, on the subject, "Why I Do Applied Ethnomusicology." Three speakers will be presenting, each for 20 minutes, followed by 10 minutes for questions. I was invited to be one of the speakers. I had declined at first but the sponsors coaxed me into accepting. Yesterday I recorded my presentation on video, and uploaded it so that the technical experts could play it back for the webinar on those two dates. I'll be present in person on May 4 for the Q&A session, but it's unlikely that I'll be able to make it for the 11th on account of the time schedule, which places the global webinar at an hour (5 a.m.) when most people in my part of the world are asleep.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span> </span> In case the global webinar is of interest to readers of this blog, it's possible to for you to participate for free; but to do so you need to pre-register. Information on pre-registering is in the links below. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Here are the titles of the presentations:</span></span></p><p class="xcontentpasted0" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 40px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span> <b>1. </b></span><b><span class="ContentPasted2" style="color: black;">Michael Frishkopf, <span class="ContentPasted2">"AI-generated soundscapes for stress reduction: From the intensive care unit to the library." </span><br /></span></b></span></span></p><p style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 40px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 40px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span class="ContentPasted2" lang="EN-US"> 2. Jeff Todd Titon,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span class="ContentPasted2">"Applying ethnomusicology:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span class="ContentPasted2" lang="EN-US">F</span><span class="ContentPasted2">rom the study of people making music to the study of beings making sound." [Note: the text of my presentation is on <a href="https://brown.academia.edu/JeffToddTiton">my academia.edu page</a>.]<br /></span></b></span></span></p><p style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 40px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 40px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="ContentPasted2" lang="EN-US"> 3. Sally Treloyn,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span class="ContentPasted2">"The work of return: Digital media, sustainability, and applied ethnomusicology</span>."</b></span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 40px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And here is the time schedule and registration link for each of the two times that the global webinar will be presented:</span></span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /></span></span></p><table class="MsoTableGrid ContentPasted2" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; border: medium none; letter-spacing: normal; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; word-spacing: 0px;"><tbody class="ContentPasted2"><tr class="ContentPasted2"><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border: 1pt solid windowtext; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" style="background-color: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #242424; font-family: inherit; padding: 0cm;">Addis Ababa and Nairobi: 9 pm, May 4</span><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p></td><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: solid solid solid none; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-width: 1pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #242424; font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p></td></tr><tr class="ContentPasted2"><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" style="background-color: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #242424; font-family: inherit; padding: 0cm;">Cairo and Cape Town: 8 pm, May 4</span><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p></td><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #242424; font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p></td></tr><tr class="ContentPasted2"><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" style="background-color: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #242424; font-family: inherit; padding: 0cm;">Copenhagen and Paris: 8 pm, May 4</span><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p></td><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #242424; font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p></td></tr><tr class="ContentPasted2"><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" style="color: #242424; font-family: inherit;">London and Dublin: 7 pm, May 4 </span></span></p></td><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #242424; font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p></td></tr><tr class="ContentPasted2"><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" style="color: #242424; font-family: inherit;">Sãu Paulo: 3 pm, May 4 </span></span></p></td><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #242424; font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p></td></tr><tr class="ContentPasted2"><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" style="color: #242424; font-family: inherit;">New York and Toronto: 2 pm, May 4<span class="ContentPasted2"> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span> </span></span></p></td><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">Jeff Todd Titon<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="contentpasted3"><span class="ContentPasted2" style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">(recording, with Q&A live)</span></span></span><span class="ContentPasted2" style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #242424; font-family: inherit; padding: 0cm;"> </span><span style="color: #242424; font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p></td></tr><tr class="ContentPasted2"><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" style="color: #242424; font-family: inherit;">Alberta: 12 pm, May 4</span><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span class="ContentPasted2"> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #242424; font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p></td><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">Michael Frishkopf<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span class="ContentPasted2" lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">(speaking live)</span><span style="color: #242424; font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p></td></tr><tr class="ContentPasted2"><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" style="color: #242424; font-family: inherit;">Los Angeles: 11 am, May 4 </span></span></p></td><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #242424; font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p></td></tr><tr class="ContentPasted2"><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" style="background-color: #d9d9d9; color: #242424; font-family: inherit;">New Zealand: 6 am, May 5 </span></span></p></td><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #242424; font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p></td></tr><tr class="ContentPasted2"><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" style="background-color: #d9d9d9; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #242424; font-family: inherit; padding: 0cm;">Sydney: 4 am, May 5<span class="ContentPasted2"> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #242424; font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p></td><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">Sally Treloyn (recording)</span><span style="background-color: #d9d9d9; color: black; font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p></td></tr><tr class="ContentPasted2"><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" style="background-color: #d9d9d9; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #242424; font-family: inherit; padding: 0cm;">Japan and Seoul: 3 am, May 5 </span></span></p></td><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #242424; font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p></td></tr><tr class="ContentPasted2"><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" style="background-color: #d9d9d9; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #242424; font-family: inherit; padding: 0cm;">Beijing</span><span class="ContentPasted2" style="background-color: #d9d9d9; color: #767676; font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span class="ContentPasted2" style="background-color: #d9d9d9; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #242424; font-family: inherit; padding: 0cm;">and<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span class="ContentPasted2" style="background-color: #d9d9d9; color: #242424; font-family: inherit;">Kuala Lumpur:<span class="ContentPasted2" style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>2 am, May 5</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p></td><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #242424; font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoNormal" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: yellow; font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: inherit;">Register in advance for this meeting on May 4:</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><br class="ContentPasted2" /><a class="ContentPasted2" href="https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEkd-CsqzIoHdQTNVfur2-SFzTX1ENR9CVZ" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEkd-CsqzIoHdQTNVfur2-SFzTX1ENR9CVZ</a></span><span style="color: #242424; font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" style="font-family: inherit;">After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. </span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0cm; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <br /></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0cm; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0cm; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" style="font-family: inherit;">May 11, 2023</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p><table class="MsoTableGrid ContentPasted2" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; border: medium none; letter-spacing: normal; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; word-spacing: 0px;"><tbody class="ContentPasted2"><tr class="ContentPasted2"><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border: 1pt solid windowtext; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" style="color: #242424; font-family: inherit;">New Zealand: 9 pm, May 11 </span></span></p></td><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: solid solid solid none; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-width: 1pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #242424; font-family: inherit; padding: 0cm;"> </span></span></p></td></tr><tr class="ContentPasted2"><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" style="background-color: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #242424; font-family: inherit; padding: 0cm;">Sydney: 7 pm, May<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span class="ContentPasted2" style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #242424; font-family: inherit; padding: 0cm;">11</span><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #242424; font-family: inherit; padding: 0cm;"><span class="ContentPasted2"> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #242424; font-family: inherit; padding: 0cm;"> </span></span></p></td><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">Sally Treloyn (speaking live)</span><span style="background-color: #d9d9d9; color: black; font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p></td></tr><tr class="ContentPasted2"><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" style="background-color: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #242424; font-family: inherit; padding: 0cm;">Japan and Seoul: 6 pm May 11 </span></span></p></td><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #242424; font-family: inherit; padding: 0cm;"> </span></span></p></td></tr><tr class="ContentPasted2"><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" style="background-color: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #242424; font-family: inherit; padding: 0cm;">Beijing</span><span class="ContentPasted2" style="background-color: white; color: #767676; font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span class="ContentPasted2" style="background-color: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #242424; font-family: inherit; padding: 0cm;">and<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span class="ContentPasted2" style="color: #242424; font-family: inherit;">Kuala Lumpur:<span class="ContentPasted2" style="background-color: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>5 pm, May 11</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p></td><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #242424; font-family: inherit; padding: 0cm;"> </span></span></p></td></tr><tr class="ContentPasted2"><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" style="background-color: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #242424; font-family: inherit; padding: 0cm;">Addis Ababa and Nairobi: 12 pm, May 11</span><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p></td><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #242424; font-family: inherit; padding: 0cm;"> </span></span></p></td></tr><tr class="ContentPasted2"><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" style="background-color: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #242424; font-family: inherit; padding: 0cm;">Cairo and Cape Town: 11 am, May 11</span><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p></td><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #242424; font-family: inherit; padding: 0cm;"> </span></span></p></td></tr><tr class="ContentPasted2"><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" style="background-color: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #242424; font-family: inherit; padding: 0cm;">Copenhagen and Paris: 11 am, May 11</span><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p></td><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #242424; font-family: inherit; padding: 0cm;"> </span></span></p></td></tr><tr class="ContentPasted2"><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" style="color: #242424; font-family: inherit;">London and Dublin: 10 am, May 11 </span></span></p></td><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #242424; font-family: inherit; padding: 0cm;"> </span></span></p></td></tr><tr class="ContentPasted2"><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" style="background-color: #d9d9d9; color: #242424; font-family: inherit;">Sãu Paulo: 6 am, May 11 </span></span></p></td><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #242424; font-family: inherit; padding: 0cm;"> </span></span></p></td></tr><tr class="ContentPasted2"><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" style="background-color: #d9d9d9; color: #242424; font-family: inherit;">New York and Toronto: 5 am, May 11<span class="ContentPasted2"> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><span style="background-color: #d9d9d9; color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span class="ContentPasted2"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #242424; font-family: inherit; padding: 0cm;"> </span></span></p></td><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">Jeff Todd Titon (recording)</span><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p></td></tr><tr class="ContentPasted2"><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" style="background-color: #d9d9d9; color: #242424; font-family: inherit;">Alberta: 3 am May 4</span><span style="background-color: #d9d9d9; color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span class="ContentPasted2"> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #242424; font-family: inherit; padding: 0cm;"> </span></span></p></td><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">Michael Frishkopf<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span class="ContentPasted2" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit;">(recording)</span><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span class="ContentPasted2"> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #242424; font-family: inherit; padding: 0cm;"> </span></span></p></td></tr><tr class="ContentPasted2"><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" style="background-color: #d9d9d9; color: #242424; font-family: inherit;">Los Angeles: 2 am, May 11 </span></span></p></td><td class="ContentPasted2" style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 225.4pt;" valign="top" width="301"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #242424; font-family: inherit; padding: 0cm;"> </span></span></p></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoNormal" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #242424; font-family: inherit; padding: 0cm;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: inherit;">Register in advance for this meeting on May 11:</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br class="ContentPasted2" /><a class="ContentPasted2" href="https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUpcO2opjMqGNTLAZAhzetFzb3DWxBMUUBk" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span lang="EN-US">https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUpcO2opjMqGNTLAZAhzetFzb3DWxBMUUBk</span></a><span lang="EN-US"> </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit;">After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="ContentPasted2" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></p><p></p>Jeff Todd Titonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10384565652765905576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4200147945040702557.post-16499890395798914632023-03-31T16:49:00.003-04:002023-04-01T20:06:04.317-04:00Spring Peepers: Sounds as Environmental Health Indicators<p><span> </span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid4HYMtLY3AsNdXkvNevInSjAA637CLZiBlF5OoyEtZrbEXI5wQdjH19-PJWH-uuF5eI-Tp6U9rvC5TyTYlqDRb6L90kBEmGAHc45sXy5cOzs2_s4saU7Xzsn_q7sjPu8iLLQRD81cNcJ65EJt0h1j70k-CkTsVunDFpYY_XoUthouXu1bajf87AWwqQ/s2043/Looking%20for%20frogs%20in%20a%20vernal%20pool.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1209" data-original-width="2043" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid4HYMtLY3AsNdXkvNevInSjAA637CLZiBlF5OoyEtZrbEXI5wQdjH19-PJWH-uuF5eI-Tp6U9rvC5TyTYlqDRb6L90kBEmGAHc45sXy5cOzs2_s4saU7Xzsn_q7sjPu8iLLQRD81cNcJ65EJt0h1j70k-CkTsVunDFpYY_XoUthouXu1bajf87AWwqQ/w400-h236/Looking%20for%20frogs%20in%20a%20vernal%20pool.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking for frogs in a vernal pool<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span><br /></span><p></p><p><span> </span><span style="font-size: medium;">Spring is the season to hear the "spring peepers," the frogs and toads and in some places, salamanders, singing their mating sounds and vibrating the waters in the wetland vernal pools that appear in the spring with the snow melt and rain, and disappear in the dry summer weather. As it happens, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/27/opinion/frogs-vernal-pools-ecosystem-climate.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare">an article</a> by Margaret Renkl that appeared four days ago in the <i>New York Times</i> called attention these spring peepers. They're able to mate and their offspring to mature in these pools because of the absence of fish--indeed, these ephemeral wetlands are not fed by springs or streams and cannot support the fish that would prey on them.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span>The amount of wetland habitat for these amphibians has, of course, been shrinking in the face of land clearing and development; and although river and stream environments enjoy some environmental protection in the US, wetland vernal pools do not. As a result, the amphibian population has been declining, most recently at the rate of 4% per year. That may not seem like much in one year, but over the years it does add up. In her article, Renkl notes that amphibians are recognized as "indicator species": "the health of an ecosystem's amphibian population is one way to measure the health of the ecosystem itself," Renkl writes. But how does one measure the health of the ecosystem's amphibian population? She doesn't say, but one implication is clear: by sound. That is, the louder and more raucous the peepers, the larger the population and the healthier the ecosystem.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Sound, in other words, is a key to evaluating environmental health in the natural world. </span><br /></p>Jeff Todd Titonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10384565652765905576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4200147945040702557.post-26993555230083050472023-02-20T16:00:00.003-05:002023-03-18T15:26:24.092-04:00Music, Sound and Nature<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpYZ7DxaE7B39MxViunyhJnUiB9Hwjd2TPh6cu4uMCFtE0H-yiwJmFS9FpVBCqPAR_1nrLNcKZtyQcWANm8a0kC0mk9kdgnHbM4Sbng8sbjhNzjytmTxSuIEfii0O4VYPWScjRdZsx5Rb5CX8B3JATRI-_hFgyToTd3zIKWTFdP8pARzZZ_w3XlBLFhA/s584/Yellow-Warbler-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="458" data-original-width="584" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpYZ7DxaE7B39MxViunyhJnUiB9Hwjd2TPh6cu4uMCFtE0H-yiwJmFS9FpVBCqPAR_1nrLNcKZtyQcWANm8a0kC0mk9kdgnHbM4Sbng8sbjhNzjytmTxSuIEfii0O4VYPWScjRdZsx5Rb5CX8B3JATRI-_hFgyToTd3zIKWTFdP8pARzZZ_w3XlBLFhA/w400-h314/Yellow-Warbler-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yellow warbler. Photo by Jeff Titon, 2010.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /> </i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>I begin with a bit of news: <a href="https://blog.feedspot.com/musicology_blogs/">FeedSpot</a> has selected Sustainable Music as one of the fifteen best musicology blogs and websites. I appreciate their recognition of this blog, maintained since 2008. </i><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">What follows now is a short introduction, for high school and first-year college students, to the topic of music, sound and nature. I wonder if ChatGPT would produce anything similar. I plan to find out. In any case, I wrote this essay in 2019 and have just now imported it into this blog, but I can't seem to overcome the strange formatting triggered by the endnote numbers in the text. So be it, and my sincere apologies for any difficulties in reading. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;">EARTH SONG: MUSIC AND THE ENVIRONMENT</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>All over the globe, and
throughout history, people have recognized deep connections between music,
sound, and nature. The 3<sup>rd</sup> century B.C.E. Chinese Taoist text, the
Zuangzi, asks “You may have heard the [musical] notes of Man, but have you not
heard those of Earth?”<a href="#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a> Henry
David Thoreau wrote in his journals of the comforting hum of the “earth song,”
the music made by frogs, crickets, and other animals.<a href="#_edn2" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;">[2]</span></span></span></span></a> This essay links earth song to human-made sounds and music for social change and a
more sustainable future. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;">Sounds tell us a lot about the environment. The natural landscape and
the built environment surround us with sounds, whether the sounds of thunder,
the whoosh of the wind shaking the trees, the ring of the church bell, the bang
of the drum, the alarm-call snorts of deer, the hum of the refrigerator or the
scream of the police car siren. We wonder why birds sing.<a href="#_edn3" name="_ednref3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;">[3]</span></span></span></span></a> What
kind of language is bird song? Is it like human language, or are they just
signaling--“danger!” or “here I am?” Have you ever tried to talk with a bird,
singing back its melody?<a href="#_edn4" name="_ednref4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;">[4]</span></span></span></span></a> Living
beings communicate by means of sound. If their acoustic channels (“acoustic
niche” is the technical term) are blocked, they either fail to get their
signals through or they may try another channel. Birds that live near highways
sing higher to avoid being blocked by traffic noise.<a href="#_edn5" name="_ednref5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;">[5]</span></span></span></span></a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></span></span></span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;">We call the characteristic sounds of a place its soundscape. Soundscapes
consist of anthrophony (sounds made by human beings), biophony (sounds of
nonhuman beings), and geophony (sounds of the Earth, such as wind, rain, thunder,
earthquakes, and glaciers). You can imagine how important sounds must have been
in an earlier America.<a href="#_edn6" name="_ednref6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;">[6]</span></span></span></span></a> Who has
not heard of the Liberty Bell? The ringing of large bells could be heard over
very long distances. People marked the passing of time with bells ringing in
clock towers; bells called children to school and churchgoers to church. The
chugging of the railroad locomotive, the clicking of the cars on the tracks,
and the scream of the railroad whistle became common sounds in the 19<sup>th</sup>
century.<a href="#_edn7" name="_ednref7" style="mso-endnote-id: edn7;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;">[7]</span></span></span></span></a> As the
trains rolled through the countryside, many a farmer out in the fields hoeing
corn or chopping cotton wondered what it would be like to travel and start a
new life in some distant city. Many a “railroad blues” song expresses those
feelings while a harmonica imitates the sound of the train whistle.<a href="#_edn8" name="_ednref8" style="mso-endnote-id: edn8;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;">[8]</span></span></span></span></a> What might
Rachel Carson have meant when she titled her book about pesticide misuse <i>Silent
Spring</i>?<a href="#_edn9" name="_ednref9" style="mso-endnote-id: edn9;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;">[9]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;">Soundscapes have interested sound collectors ever since it became
possible to make recordings. In some countries, such as Japan, sound collecting
has been going on for many decades.<a href="#_edn10" name="_ednref10" style="mso-endnote-id: edn10;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;">[10]</span></span></span></span></a> Moses
Asch, founder of Folkways Records, encouraged collectors of biophonic,
geophonic, and anthrophonic sounds and released them on LPs beginning in the
1950s. You can still hear those Folkways albums featuring the sounds of frogs
and other amphibians, birds, thunderstorms, even rooms filled with typewriters
clicking away (typing pools, as they were called back then).<a href="#_edn11" name="_ednref11" style="mso-endnote-id: edn11;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;">[11]</span></span></span></span></a> Today’s
international sound collectors get together on the internet to share their
recordings and technical expertise.<a href="#_edn12" name="_ednref12" style="mso-endnote-id: edn12;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;">[12]</span></span></span></span></a> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;">Soundscapes inspire composers of music in various ways. 20<sup>th</sup>-century
<i>musique concrète</i> composers sampled and mixed recorded environmental
sounds into their musical performances. John Cage’s famous 4’ 33” is a
composition in which the musicians do nothing for the four minutes and
thirty-three seconds’ duration of the composition. The only “music” the
audience hears is the soundscape of the room in which the “performance” occurs.
Contemporary sound installations are sited so as to integrate musical
compositions with environmental sounds, indoors and out. Environmental sound
art not only awakens listeners to the soundscape but also to environmental
impacts of noise pollution (as from airplane flyovers in the National Parks) and
habitat change. Some composers have taken down bird songs in musical notation,
and others have incorporated, imitated, or transformed bird song phrases in
their compositions. In Chinese music such as “100 Birds Courting the Phoenix,”
for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">suona </i>(oboe) and ensemble,
extended passages are a virtual catalog of bird calls and songs imitated by
instruments.<a href="#_edn13" name="_ednref13" style="mso-endnote-id: edn13;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;">[13]</span></span></span></span></a>
But birdsong played an even more important role in traditional Chinese music. According
to the ancient book of the Chunqiu, in the 3<sup>rd</sup> millennium B.C.E. the
Yellow Emperor Huangdi sent one of his courtiers, Lin Lun, to the western
mountains to invent music.<a href="#_edn14" name="_ednref14" style="mso-endnote-id: edn14;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;">[14]</span></span></span></span></a> There
he gathered hollow bamboo and made twelve pipes of “superior and inferior
generation” to match the pitches he heard in the harmonious singing of the <i>fenghuang</i>
birds.<a href="#_edn15" name="_ednref15" style="mso-endnote-id: edn15;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;">[15]</span></span></span></span></a> In
other words, Chinese mythology tells us that the Chinese musical scale comes
from birdsong. It was also believed that in a new dynasty the Chinese Emperor
would order the fixed-pitch instruments to be recalibrated in order to bring
them back in tune with the universe. It would be hard to find a stronger
connection between music, sound, and the environment. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;">Nor was the connection between harmony in music and the universe
confined to ancient China. You may have heard about the idea of the music of
the spheres. The ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras (c. 570-495 B.C.E.) claimed
that that when the mathematical ratios that described the motions of the stars
and planets were also made to govern musical intervals, they created harmonious
sounds; and that therefore these heavenly bodies must make pleasing music
(although their sounds were beyond human hearing). This idea of a harmonious
universe also was essential to medieval and Renaissance European music
philosophers, and to educators who made the study of music a required part of
the quadrivium, an important part of the medieval curriculum. Today music is
not so central to education, yet most students listen to music on a daily basis
for pleasure and consider it an essential part of their lives.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;">People deeply concerned about the climate emergency ask what they can do
to help mitigate this environmental crisis. One way is to become involved with
music that raises environmental consciousness, promotes solidarity and
encourages care for the Earth. In addition, emerging fields of study such as ecomusicology
combine ecology with music in new and powerful ways that can combine knowledge
with environmental activism.<a href="#_edn16" name="_ednref16" style="mso-endnote-id: edn16;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;">[16]</span></span></span></span></a> Raising
environmental consciousness often occurs in the face of habitat loss or
environmental dangers. In 1966 Pete Seeger recorded <i>God Bless the Grass</i>,
the first album of environmental protest songs. Seeger’s “My Dirty Stream,”
about the Hudson River, went on to become a protest rallying cry after his
Clearwater sloop took part in the first Earth Day (1970).<a href="#_edn17" name="_ednref17" style="mso-endnote-id: edn17;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;">[17]</span></span></span></span></a> In “Big
Yellow Taxi” (1970) Joni Mitchell sang “They paved paradise and they put up a
parking lot,” which immediately became a proverbial expression for the
environmental movement’s opposition to the proliferation of shopping malls and
industrial parks. And in this century, to take one of hundreds of more recent
examples, several musicians have devoted themselves to protecting the US
Northwest Coast bioregion, the old-growth forests and salmon grounds on the
coasts of Washington and British Columbia. Dana Lyons, Idle No More, and The
Raging Grannies are among those musicians whose protest songs target the endangered
Salish Sea environment.<a href="#_edn18" name="_ednref18" style="mso-endnote-id: edn18;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;">[18]</span></span></span></span></a> The
Hypoxic Punks sing about environmental problems in their home city of
Minneapolis-St. Paul.<a href="#_edn19" name="_ednref19" style="mso-endnote-id: edn19;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;">[19]</span></span></span></span></a> Wikipedia
lists hundreds of “songs about the environment” by well-known and lesser-known
musicians.<a href="#_edn20" name="_ednref20" style="mso-endnote-id: edn20;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;">[20]</span></span></span></span></a>
In most communities today it is not hard to find local musician-activists who
sing to raise environmental consciousness, promote solidarity, and encourage
care for the Earth.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;">Ecomusicology, as the name implies, involves the study of ecology and
music. Ecology is the study of organisms (living beings), their relationships
with each other, and their relationships with the environment. Ecomusicology is
the study of music, sound, culture, nature and the environment in a time of
environmental crisis.<a href="#_edn21" name="_ednref21" style="mso-endnote-id: edn21;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;">[21]</span></span></span></span></a> Ecomusicology
brings together composers, musicians, environmental activists, ecologists, and
students of music and sound to increase their understanding of the sonic world
and its relations with human and other beings, and the environment.<a href="#_edn22" name="_ednref22" style="mso-endnote-id: edn22;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;">[22]</span></span></span></span></a> Some
scholars are especially interested in applying literary ecocriticism to music--that is, in studying the ways composers have incorporated nature and
the environment into their ideas about music and their musical compositions
themselves. Other eco-musicologists explore the interface between music, sound
and the environment more directly. One of these research areas concerns sustainability
of natural materials used to make musical instruments.<a href="#_edn23" name="_ednref23" style="mso-endnote-id: edn23;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;">[23]</span></span></span></span></a> For
hundreds of years the finest violin bows have been made of Pernambuco wood,
while the finest guitar bodies were constructed of Brazilian rosewood. But
these woods currently are endangered, requiring laws to limit their use, and
encouraging luthiers to experiment with alternative construction materials.
Moreover, research into methods of stewardship and conservation should result
in a continued, if limited, supply of traditional materials, while it may be
possible to find favorable conditions to grow them outside of their normal
ranges, especially in response to habitat change induced by global warming.
Other important areas for eco-musicological research involve visiting with and
attempting to understand how various native and indigenous peoples think of the
sonic universe and its relation to living in harmony with the environment.<a href="#_edn24" name="_ednref24" style="mso-endnote-id: edn24;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;">[24]</span></span></span></span></a> Long
dismissed as superstition, this traditional indigenous knowledge about the
healing powers of sound and music has begun to be valued as a way to think
about adapting to conditions brought about by the climate emergency. Related to
well-being is the research on noise pollution, done by acoustic ecologists on
the effects of noise.<a href="#_edn25" name="_ednref25" style="mso-endnote-id: edn25;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;">[25]</span></span></span></span></a> Sudden
loud noise produces a “fight or flight” response while continued loud noise, as
near airports, in factories, near quarries, and so on, causes physical and
psychological illness, just as a frequently barking neighbor’s dog can drive
people to distraction. Public environmental policy requires noise limiting
ordinances and other means of noise abatement (acoustic insulation, etc.).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;">People may think that music streamed over the internet is more
environmentally friendly than previous listening formats such as CDs and
cassettes, which not only required fossil fuel energy to manufacture them but
also, not being recyclable, pile up in landfills. But it takes an enormous
amount of energy to operate the servers that store and stream the music. The
amount of carbon dioxide emissions from the manufacture, distribution and sale
of CDs, vinyl records, and cassettes in the US in 2000 was 157 million
kilograms. In 2016, when the revenue from CD sales was roughly 1/8 what it was
in 2000, and when streaming and mp3 downloads were the vastly preferred
listening formats, the amount of carbon dioxide emissions from internet servers
in the US was 350 million kilograms. In other words, despite the transition
from CDs to the internet, the amount of carbon dioxide emissions from music
listening has nearly doubled. Of course, as electricity comes increasingly from
renewable sources, music’s contribution to global warming may decline. In an
effort to reduce their carbon footprint, many musicians and bands have
introduced more environmentally friendly practices into their music-making and
distribution. On their tours, Dave Matthews Band, Phish, Dead and Company,
Drake, Walk the Moon, and others reduce carbon use by employing solar energy,
distributing reusable water bottles, providing solar charging stations at
concerts, and handing out information about environmental issues, green
products and tech, and so on. REVERB, an organization created to reduce bands’
energy footprints, sponsors a Farm-to-Stage program that works with local
farmers to provide artists and their crews with locally sourced food.<a href="#_edn26" name="_ednref26" style="mso-endnote-id: edn26;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;">[26]</span></span></span></span></a> In
July, 2019 a group of music industry professionals formed an organization
called Music Declares Emergency, calling for “the music industry to acknowledge
how its practices impact the environment and to commit to taking urgent action”
and to “work toward making our businesses ecologically sustainable and
regenerative.”<a href="#_edn27" name="_ednref27" style="mso-endnote-id: edn27;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text1;">[27]</span></span></span></span></a></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;">As concern about the well-being of the planet and all of its inhabitants
is growing, music and sound make us aware of the plight of our common
inheritance: our seas, our air, our forests, our other habitats. We know that
the earth song has the power to awaken our environmental awareness and
encourage environmental activism. Sound connects beings in the world. In songs
of protest and through experimental compositions, we make audible both the
strength and vulnerability of our environment, while sonic connections enable
our common kinship with it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<div style="mso-element: endnote-list;"><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="edn1" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%;"><a href="#_ednref1" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">
Translated from one of the inner chapters, </span><b><span face=""Hiragino Kaku Gothic ProN W6",sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">齊物論</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Hiragino Kaku Gothic ProN W6";"> </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Hiragino Kaku Gothic ProN W6";">or The Adjustment of
Controversies. See </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/zhuang-zhou-zhuangzi#toc3"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Hiragino Kaku Gothic ProN W6";">https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/zhuang-zhou-zhuangzi#toc3</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Hiragino Kaku Gothic ProN W6";">. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn2" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%;"><a href="#_ednref2" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">
For example, his entry for May 20, 1854: “The steadily increasing sound of
toads and frogs along the river with each successive warmer night is one of the
most important peculiarities of the season. Their prevalence and loudness is in
proportion to the increased temperature of the day. It is the first earth-song,
beginning with the croakers, (the crickets not yet), as if the very meads at
last burst into a meadowy song.” See also the entries for Nov. 11, 1850, May
12, 1857, and January 2, 1858. Thoreau’s journals may be found at <a href="https://www.walden.org/collection/journals/">https://www.walden.org/collection/journals/</a>. </span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn3" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%;"><a href="#_ednref3" name="_edn3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[3]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">
See Donald Kroodsma, <i>The Singing Life of Birds</i> (Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt, 2007).</span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn4" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%;"><a href="#_ednref4" name="_edn4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[4]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">
See Alan Powers, <i>Bird Talk</i> (Berkeley, CA: Frog Books, 2003).</span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn5" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%;"><a href="#_ednref5" name="_edn5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[5]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">
See Bernie Krause, <i>Wild Soundscapes</i>, revised 2<sup>nd</sup> ed. (Yale
University Press, 2016), and <i>The Great Animal Orchestra</i> (Little, Brown
Back Bay Books, 2013).</span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn6" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%;"><a href="#_ednref6" name="_edn6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[6]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">
Richard Rath, <i>How Early America Sounded</i> (Cornell University Press,
2005).</span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn7" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%;"><a href="#_ednref7" name="_edn7" style="mso-endnote-id: edn7;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[7]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">
In the “Sounds” chapter of <i>Walden</i>, Henry David Thoreau wrote about the
sounds of the locomotive piercing the natural soundscape in the forest near
Walden Pond. For Thoreau these sounds were signals of the Industrial
Revolution.</span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn8" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><a href="#_ednref8" name="_edn8" style="mso-endnote-id: edn8;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[8]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">
Hear Woody Guthrie and Sonny Terry’s “Railroad Blues” on Folkways </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">FW00AA4_205, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://folkways.si.edu/the-asch-recordings-1939-to-1945-vol-2/b/american-folk/music/album/smithsonian"><i>The
Asch Recordings, 1939 to 1945 - Vol. 2</i></a><i>.</i></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn9" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%;"><a href="#_ednref9" name="_edn9" style="mso-endnote-id: edn9;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[9]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">
Rachel Carson, <i>Silent Spring</i>, fiftieth anniversary edition (Houghton
Mifflin, 2002).</span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn10" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%;"><a href="#_ednref10" name="_edn10" style="mso-endnote-id: edn10;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[10]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">
For example, the Nature Sounds Society of Japan at <a href="http://naturesoundsjp.blogspot.com/">http://naturesoundsjp.blogspot.com/</a>. </span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn11" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%;"><a href="#_ednref11" name="_edn11" style="mso-endnote-id: edn11;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[11]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">
See Jeff Todd Titon, “A Sound Commons for All Living Creatures.” <i>Smithsonian
Folkways Magazine</i> (Fall-Winter 2012). <a href="https://folkways.si.edu/magazine-fall-winter-2012-sound-commons-living-creatures/science-and-nature-world/music/article/smithsonian">https://folkways.si.edu/magazine-fall-winter-2012-sound-commons-living-creatures/science-and-nature-world/music/article/smithsonian</a>. </span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn12" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%;"><a href="#_ednref12" name="_edn12" style="mso-endnote-id: edn12;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[12]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">
For example, the World Listening Project (<a href="https://www.worldlisteningproject.org/">https://www.worldlisteningproject.org/</a>),
and Xeno-canto (for bird songs, <a href="https://www.xeno-canto.org/">https://www.xeno-canto.org/</a>)
Accessed 27 November 2019. Nature Recordists (<a href="http://www.naturesongs.com/naturerecordists.html">http://www.naturesongs.com/naturerecordists.html</a>)
and the World Listening Project also formed Yahoo Groups but as of this writing
Yahoo Groups is closing and both those communities are migrating to Groups.io. </span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn13" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<h1 style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;"><a href="#_ednref13" name="_edn13" style="mso-endnote-id: edn13;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">[13]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%;"> A performance by
Yazhi Guo and Tao He playing the <i>suona</i> and <i>erhu</i> may be seen at </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3wFEIMads0"><span style="font-weight: normal;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3wFEIMads0</span></a></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%;">. </span></h1>
</div>
<div id="edn14" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%;"><a href="#_ednref14" name="_edn14" style="mso-endnote-id: edn14;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[14]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"> Written
by Lü Buweh in the 3<sup>th</sup> century B.C.E. The music-making events
themselves were said to have occurred in the 3rd millennium B.C.E.</span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn15" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%;"><a href="#_ednref15" name="_edn15" style="mso-endnote-id: edn15;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[15]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"> These
were mythological, immortal creatures, sometimes called the Chinese phoenix,
representing both male and female elements (a yin-yang harmony).</span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn16" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%;"><a href="#_ednref16" name="_edn16" style="mso-endnote-id: edn16;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[16]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">
See <a href="https://ecomusicology.info/">https://ecomusicology.info/</a>.
Accessed 27 November 2019.</span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn17" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%;"><a href="#_ednref17" name="_edn17" style="mso-endnote-id: edn17;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[17]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"> <i>God
Bless the Grass</i>, containing “My Dirty Stream,” Columbia Records CL 2432, reissued
in 1982 as Folkways FW27232 and FSS 37232. The album also contained many songs
composed by Malvina Reynolds, author of “Little Boxes,” a celebrated song about
look-alike housing in suburban developments that mocked middle-class conformity
in 1950s America. </span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn18" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%;"><a href="#_ednref18" name="_edn18" style="mso-endnote-id: edn18;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[18]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">
Mark Pedelty, <i>A Song to Save the Salish Sea</i> (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 2016). </span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn19" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%;"><a href="#_ednref19" name="_edn19" style="mso-endnote-id: edn19;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[19]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">
See and hear them sing “Watershed” at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfJFCBNkqOs">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfJFCBNkqOs</a>. </span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn20" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%;"><a href="#_ednref20" name="_edn20" style="mso-endnote-id: edn20;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[20]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">
See <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_about_the_environment">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_about_the_environment</a>. </span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn21" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%;"><a href="#_ednref21" name="_edn21" style="mso-endnote-id: edn21;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[21]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">
Jeff Todd Titon, “The Nature of Ecomusicology,” <i>Mùsica e Cultura</i>, Vol.
18, no. 1, p. 9. Download the article in English at <a href="http://www.abet.mus.br/revista/">http://www.abet.mus.br/revista/</a>. </span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn22" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%;"><a href="#_ednref22" name="_edn22" style="mso-endnote-id: edn22;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[22]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">
For more information about ecomusicology see Aaron Allen and Kevin Dawe, eds., <i>Current
Directions in Ecomusicology</i> (Routledge, 2016) and the journal <i>Ecomusicology
Review</i> (at <a href="https://ecomusicology.info/">https://ecomusicology.info/</a>. </span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn23" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%;"><a href="#_ednref23" name="_edn23" style="mso-endnote-id: edn23;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[23]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">
Aaron Allen, “Fatto Di Fiemme’: Stradivari’s Violins and the Musical Trees of
the Paneveggio,” in <i>Invaluable Trees: Cultures of Nature, 1660-1830, </i>edited
by Laura Auricchio, Elizabeth Heckendorn Cook, and Giulia Pacini, pp. 301-315 (Oxford:
Voltaire Foundation, 2012).</span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn24" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%;"><a href="#_ednref24" name="_edn24" style="mso-endnote-id: edn24;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[24]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">
See, for example, Klisala Harrison, “Aboriginal Music for Well-being in a
Canadian Inner City,” <i>MUSICultures</i>, 36 (2009), pp. 1-22. During the
intensifying environmental crisis of the past fifty years, Euro-American
scholars have increasingly turned to native and indigenous knowledges about the
environment for ways for humans to live in harmony with nature. There is a
large and continually growing literature in this area from anthropologists such
as Philippe Descola, whose <i>In the Society of Nature: a Native Ecology in
Amazonia</i> (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) was one of the key
texts in the last century. Descola’s <i>Beyond Nature and Culture</i> (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2013) is recognized as a landmark in 21<sup>st</sup>
century environmental studies.</span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn25" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%;"><a href="#_ednref25" name="_edn25" style="mso-endnote-id: edn25;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[25]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">
R. Murray Schafer, the pioneer in acoustic ecology who coined the term
“soundscape,” has been especially concerned about noise pollution (e.g., in his
<i>The Soundscape</i> (New York: Destiny Books, 1993). His thoughts on the
subject may be found summarized in a lecture, “The Sounding City,” at <a href="https://www.david-howes.com/senses/sensing-the-city-lecture-RMurraySchafer.htm">https://www.david-howes.com/senses/sensing-the-city-lecture-RMurraySchafer.htm</a>. </span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn26" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%;"><a href="#_ednref26" name="_edn26" style="mso-endnote-id: edn26;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[26]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">
Information about REVERB can be found at <a href="https://reverb.org">https://reverb.org</a>. </span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn27" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%;"><a href="#_ednref27" name="_edn27" style="mso-endnote-id: edn27;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[27]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">
Information about Music Declares Emergency can be found at <a href="https://www.musicdeclares.net/">https://www.musicdeclares.net/</a>. </span></p>
</div>
</div>
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mso-endnote-numbering-style:arabic;}</style><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>Jeff Todd Titonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10384565652765905576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4200147945040702557.post-62285326241386458192023-01-11T19:44:00.002-05:002023-02-05T17:22:47.719-05:00Nature writing: ethnography, travel literature, and literary ethnography (2)<p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnHILgn-WuErgM5zeQteSJpORz058LWwTI0dC2ZTObGug03IkWpyk55AxtYBkWVqWdpqKQddvWMF9RjjuBlacHmV8gANZVA10hM6pvthWgt6b3FHRsk41BOxnKVdKJqD1M1xItCworY8X6lAi-wFSeNgl437ESkfqzsKOINzwvs--pGKh2Sm39Q88zdw/s2560/Girl_writing_near_the_Tagus_River_(41037455652).jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1703" data-original-width="2560" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnHILgn-WuErgM5zeQteSJpORz058LWwTI0dC2ZTObGug03IkWpyk55AxtYBkWVqWdpqKQddvWMF9RjjuBlacHmV8gANZVA10hM6pvthWgt6b3FHRsk41BOxnKVdKJqD1M1xItCworY8X6lAi-wFSeNgl437ESkfqzsKOINzwvs--pGKh2Sm39Q88zdw/w400-h266/Girl_writing_near_the_Tagus_River_(41037455652).jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Writing near the Tagus River, Portugal, by Pedro Simōes. Wikimedia commons.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The editorial introduction to the section of the <i>Norton Anthology of American Literature</i> (9th ed., 2016) that contains “Ethnographic and Naturalist Writings” calls the former “literary ethnography” (instead of travel literature, the normal term) and in so doing suggests that in some sense the latter (i.e., nature writing) is also ethnographic. To be sure, the writings of natural historians are descriptive and may be systematic and scientific, just as anthropological ethnography is. But, strictly speaking, the idea of an “ethnography” of plants and animals is a misnomer. Why? Because ethnography's Greek root <i>ethnos</i> refers to human beings. Yet what happens when the boundaries between human and more-than-human blur? Is an ethnography of nature possible?<br /> Nature writing is not to be confused with scientific writing about nature. Scientific writing about nature is fact-based, descriptive, often reductionistic, concerned chiefly with structures and functions, parts and wholes. The parts of a plant, how they work together, how a plant grows, that sort of thing. Animal behavior as it is observed. Science writing like this can be found in biology textbooks and in reports on experiments in journals such as <i>Science</i> and <i>Nature</i>. Nature writing, on the other hand, is, in the words of Richard Mabey, editor of <i>The Oxford Book of Nature Writing</i>, an attempt to “portray the life of nature in prose”—not so much how a plant grows, but to convey, somehow, the “life” of the plant, what it is, or is like, for the plant to be alive: in Mabey’s words, both the plant’s “kindredness and otherness” to human life (1995, vii). Nature writers you may be familiar with include Barry Lopez, Gary Snyder, Annie Dillard, Daisy Hildyard, and Peter Matthiessen. Some scientists have also tried their hand at nature writing: Lewis Thomas, Aldo Leopold, and E. O. Wilson, for example. The tradition of nature writing in English also includes earlier writers like John Muir, John Burroughs, Henry David Thoreau, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Gilbert White. <br /> Nature writing is a “quest for the essential characteristics and boundaries of being human” (Mabey, ibid.). It is often lyrical and conjectural. It is, certainly, literary. Still, the idea that nature writers are also doing something like ethnography is intriguing. That is, when they write about plants and animals to probe those “essential characteristics” of being human, they must, to some degree, anthropomorphize non-human nature. To take the most obvious example, birds are said to “sing.” A scientist—that is, a behavioral ecologist—may use the term birdsong but only as a placeholder for the sounds that birds make in order to communicate with one another. Behavioral ecologists such as Richard Dawkins have taken pains to deny any aesthetic component in birdsong—that is, any possibility that birds are singing for their own pleasure. Nature writers, on the other hand, take pleasure in the possibility that birds sing not just for practical purposes—to attract a mate, to sound alarm calls, and so on—but also for their own enjoyment. One might point out that birdsong is not parsimonious: a bird will appear to “sing its heart out” for a long time, surely longer than seems necessary to frighten an enemy, attract a mate, sound an alarm, or otherwise announce its presence in the neighborhood. In anthropomorphizing birdsong, nature writers are in effect trying to understand the “native’s (i.e., the bird’s) point of view”— which, beyond mere detailed, “thick” and systematic description, is one of the most important aims of ethnography, as anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski expressed it more than 100 years ago. Certain non-Western beliefs about nature also play into the idea that it has something in common with ethnography. Indigenous social groups whose view of nature is what Viveiros de Castro has termed “perspectivism” do not exactly anthropomorphize animals but, rather, consider that like humans they have consciousness, intentions, feelings, and undergo experience; and that, like humans, they have social lives in groups not unlike human groups. In short, this Indigenous perspective, which can be found in traditional ecological thought among Native groups in the Americas, does not need to anthropomorphize because it views animals as kindred, not other. Ethnography from this perspective would not need to overcome the barriers that science throws up by denying inner lives to plants and animals. <br /> Of course, the <i>Norton Anthology</i> editor’s category, “literary ethnography,” is separate from “naturalistic writings”; yet to juxtapose them in the same space does suggest the systematic and descriptive (ethnographic) approach to nature which has been characteristic of certain natural historians in their taxonomic activities—Linnaeus, for example, or Darwin for that matter. Yet until early in the 20th century most natural historians in their “naturalistic writings” mixed objective, scientific taxonomy of particular species with lyrical, anthropomorphic descriptions of animal lives, often in the same entry. In nineteenth-century books about bird species, for example, natural historians took pains to classify, determine prevalence, and describe size, coloring, shape, habitat, range, reproductive habits, nests, seasonal activities, etc. but they also added anecdotes thought to typify what was characteristic of that particular species, as well as conjectures about inner lives while sometimes imputing motives and feelings to individual birds whose behavior was described. Moreover, they represented bird species' songs either in mnemonic syllables, or in musical notation. In the twentieth century musical notation gave way to sound spectrograph representations of birdsong, but while objectivity and precision were gained, the reader’s ability to sing back the song from musical notation was lost. The same precision and objectivity is apparent in twentieth-century bird identification guidebooks such as Peterson’s and Sibley’s. Yet there is no shortage of lyrical nature writing about birds and other animals in contemporary literature; indeed, it’s a very popular literary genre—not only in writing but also in films and television shows that attempt to portray animal lives. <br /> As more and more plant and animal species are endangered, or threatened by extinction, due to human encroachment on habitat, global heating, and so forth, a sustainability/conservation component inevitably enters nature writing, often accompanied by a combination of sentiment if not sentimentality, along with a sense of emergency. But there is a truth to this component, regardless of the perspective: Western science, nature writing, or perspectivism. For Western science, nature provides ecosystem services for human beings; for naturalists, nature reveals the porous boundaries between the human and more-than-human; and for Indigenous perspectivists, nature reveals life’s universal kinship. <br /></span></p>Jeff Todd Titonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10384565652765905576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4200147945040702557.post-30443429049348505382022-12-28T19:07:00.003-05:002022-12-28T19:30:09.768-05:00Keeping Track of Writing Projects -- End of 2022
<p><a name="_GoBack"></a><span style="font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3224xOeRMWl8TrH1lTcQiI4Yh3dfZP3kAYa8TXt-4RVguV0Y4Shv0dKpA0ytuvdm7sQKIZU5txD6vmimvTmwVIDRBCCBvf-Qa_azGU9NXKsZWL9sX_Kml9QVxbTtT-JeehYYps0XYSFSG9Jw0q9Z1Otq678sfWlgeYFYfb2nSfhYhUAGUs36KD9k-TA/s868/Scholar_with_His_Books_by_Gerbrand_van_den_Eeckhout.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="868" data-original-width="652" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3224xOeRMWl8TrH1lTcQiI4Yh3dfZP3kAYa8TXt-4RVguV0Y4Shv0dKpA0ytuvdm7sQKIZU5txD6vmimvTmwVIDRBCCBvf-Qa_azGU9NXKsZWL9sX_Kml9QVxbTtT-JeehYYps0XYSFSG9Jw0q9Z1Otq678sfWlgeYFYfb2nSfhYhUAGUs36KD9k-TA/w300-h400/Scholar_with_His_Books_by_Gerbrand_van_den_Eeckhout.jpeg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Scholar with his books. Gerbrand van den Eeckhout (17th c.)<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /> </span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">An update to keep track
of my writing projects has become an annual event. Since the last update, on
Dec. 31, 2021, which writing projects have progressed, which have been
published, and which have seemingly stagnated? On <a href="https://brown.academia.edu/JeffToddTiton">my
academia.edu page</a> and also in my twitter profile @jefftoddtiton I suggest
that readers who want to know the answer to the question “What research and
writing are you working on?” come to this blog to find out. Here is the list:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">1. “Ethical Considerations for
Ethnomusicologists in the Midst of Environmental Crisis.” In August, 2020 I’d
finished this essay for a book in progress edited by Jonathan Stock and
Beverley Diamond called the <i>Routledge Companion to Ethics and Research in
Ethnomusicology</i>. Routledge published the book a few months ago, and it's <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Companion-to-Ethics-and-Research-in-Ethnomusicology/Stock-Diamond/p/book/9780367490034">available
from Routledge</a> and other sources. I'm hoping that in a year it will be
available in paperback at reasonable price. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">2. A short essay on musical icons,
introducing a section of a book entitled <i>Social Voices: The Cultural
Politics of Singers Around the Globe</i>. I finished up the essay in the
spring of 2021. The book is in production now and <a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p087387">scheduled
for publication</a> by the University of Illinois Press in 2023.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">3. “Eco-trope or Eco-tripe? Music Ecology
Today.” I completed this chapter in 2021. It’s for the book edited by Aaron S.
Allen and myself, <i>Sounds, Ecologies, Musics</i>. I also co-wrote the
Introduction with Aaron. The book contains thirteen essays written from diverse
ecological perspectives, by scientists, scholars, environmental activists, and
musicians, each concerned with music, sound, nature, culture and the
environment in a time of environmental crisis. Since I wrote about it in my
blog entry a year ago, it received a positive external review from Oxford's
referees and has just been put into production at Oxford, with expected
publication toward the end of 2023.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">4. “The Sound Commons and Applied
Ecomusicologies.” This is an article co-authored by Aaron Allen, Taylor
Leapaldt, Mark Pedelty, and myself, for <i>The Routledge Companion to Applied
Musicology</i>, edited by Chris Dromey. I completed my section (on my concept
of the sound commons) of the article in 2019, and the others followed with
their sections; we revised in 2020 and sent the manuscript to Chris, who
returned it with suggested revisions in the spring of 2021. We responded to
those and revised yet again, and sent them back to Chris. The book is in the
latter stages of production and <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Companion-to-Applied-Musicology/Dromey/p/book/9780367488246">should
be available</a> in the spring of 2023. I'm hoping that a year later it will be
available in paperback at reasonable price. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">5. “Ecojustice and Ontological Turns: a
Response to Marshall and DeAngeli.” This was part of an E-seminar that the <i>Ecomusicology
Review</i> has been conducting in the fall of 2021 within the ecomusicology
Google Group. Kimberly Marshall and Emma DeAngeli wrote an essay to which
Sebastian Hochmeyer responded, whereupon they wrote a rejoinder. Mark Pedelty
followed with a second response. Aaron Allen asked me if I too would respond,
and so I wrote a brief response, starting with my reaction to a disagreement
between Marshall and DeAngeli on one hand, and Hachmeyer on the other, over the
relevance of the so-called ontological turn in anthropology to the project of
social justice. Rather than take sides, I proposed that ecojustice would
resolve the disagreement by including social justice in the larger framework of
relationality and by extending reciprocity and respect to all living beings,
not just humans. This is congruent with the writings of Indigenous scholars
such as Robin Kimmerer and Zoe Todd in past dozen years or so as well even
though they don’t use that term. Aaron intends for all these to be published in
the <a href="https://ecomusicology.info/"><i>Ecomusicology
Review</i></a>, though I’m still not sure when.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">6. An essay on music and sustainability
that I wrote as an invited forward for the book <i>Music, Communities,
Sustainability</i>, edited by Huib Schippers and Anthony Seeger, was <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/music-communities-sustainability-9780197609101?cc=us&lang=en&#">published</a>
this year by Oxford University Press. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">7. My essay "Sustainability and a Sound
Ecology," the latest published description of my sound ecology project,
was kindly translated into Spanish by Chilean musicologist Mauricio
Valdebenito, and published in <i>El oído pensante</i>, vol. 10, no. 1, 2022,
pp. 131-156. It can be downloaded from the journal's website, <a href="http://revistascientificas.filo.uba.ar/index.php/oidopensante/issue/view/761">here</a>.
The English version had already been published in my book <i>Toward a Sound
Ecology: New and Selected Essays</i> (Indiana University Press, 2020). </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">8. Earlier this year Robert Baron, on behalf
of the Fellows of the American Folklore Society, invited me to contribute an
essay to a forthcoming issue of the <i>Journal of American Folklore</i>, to be
derived from my oral presentation on folklife, heritage and environment for the
American Folklore Society <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_paUiQ4lmOc&t=3982s">webinar</a>
on "Heritage, Folklore, and the Public Sphere" on March 10, 2021. I
completed the essay (a little more than 10,000 words) in August, and then
revised it a little in response to suggestions from Robert and also from Mary
Hufford and returned it to Robert Baron at the end of October. Its title is
"Folklife, Heritage, and the Environment: A Critique of Natural Capital,
Ecosystem Services, and Settler Ecology." It's to go into a future issue
of the <i>Journal</i> with a group of other essays related to the topic of
heritage, folklore, and the public sphere. I have no timeline yet on
publication.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">9. I continue to work on my book-length
manuscript, <i>A Sound Ecology</i>. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Among the lectures and seminars I gave during
this past year, one in particular was memorable: an invited video lecture for
the Festival El Aleph, in Mexico City. The festival was organized by <a href="https://cultura.unam.mx/">CulturaUnam</a> with the National Autonomous
University of Mexico, and broadcast on TV UNAM. I was one of three scholars
from the US invited to present at this festival, a hybrid (partly online,
partly in-person) extravaganza that unites science with art and music by means
of lectures, workshops, and performances by scientists, scholars, artists and
musicians. The theme this year was sustainability and environment, and I was
asked to speak about my sound ecology project. The Festival recorded the
lecture over Zoom in March, and then broadcast it during the festival itself,
on May 25. I was pleasantly surprised to find, when I began watching the
broadcast itself, that Festival producers had located video footage and
inserted it, intercutting with my "talking head" so as to illustrate
the ideas that I was discussing. The result was that instead of seeing a
talking head on the screen for 45 minutes, the viewer saw the lecture intercut
with a variety of illustrative video clips that made the presentation more
interesting to watch and listen to. I'm grateful to the producers for doing
this. I was, also, told by several friends and colleagues who saw it, that it
was the clearest and best explanation of my sound ecology project to date. As
it happens, it can still be seen from the Festival website, <a href="https://culturaunam.mx/elaleph2022/eventos-2022/una-ecologia-del-sonido/">via
this link</a> in case anyone reading this blog entry would like to take a look.
</span></p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style>Jeff Todd Titonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10384565652765905576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4200147945040702557.post-82943008359108822062022-11-30T22:47:00.006-05:002022-12-01T19:57:05.545-05:00Ethnography, travel literature, and literary ethnography (1)<p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5X9jD7rCPg-OnqJ0k7Q39tdDaO-8eAl8Mxb91wpObrBh4lQHj83MxoKWB9qcj3zcuLc67cVgRNJRl7NTo_icj62kkDBTudIb_YhRAPSLz2zljDVESSrw779NiphilY3rKm_7LSs9oMmxwL8eMYOoKTXuOicw0QRl6gN2HF31N6kBZDlSXOOHuI8jtxQ/s1600/Frog-in-Vernal-Pool---unframed.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5X9jD7rCPg-OnqJ0k7Q39tdDaO-8eAl8Mxb91wpObrBh4lQHj83MxoKWB9qcj3zcuLc67cVgRNJRl7NTo_icj62kkDBTudIb_YhRAPSLz2zljDVESSrw779NiphilY3rKm_7LSs9oMmxwL8eMYOoKTXuOicw0QRl6gN2HF31N6kBZDlSXOOHuI8jtxQ/w400-h300/Frog-in-Vernal-Pool---unframed.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Find the frog in vernal pool. Spring 2022. Photo by Jeff Titon.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> I was interested to see, in the first volume of the ninth edition of the <i>Norton Anthology of American Literature</i> (2016), a section with the heading Ethnographic and Naturalist Writings (Vol. 1, pp. 641ff). The section’s introduction begins, “Broadly defined, the genre of literary ethnography is the written description of peoples, cultures, and societies. . . . Virtually all of the earliest ‘American’ literature offers instances of ethnographic and naturalist writing, as the sustained European encounter with the Americas that begin in 1492 provided writers with a treasure trove of new material” (641). My interest was piqued, first of all, by the use of the word ethnography outside of the anthropological/ethnomusicological/folkloristic context in which I know it. Inside that context, although ethnography is defined as the written description of the culture, or some aspects of the culture, of a social group, it is not regarded primarily as literature or even as a literary genre. Instead, it aspires to be systematic, its reliability grounded and guaranteed by thorough documentation. Systematic ethnographic descriptions to a certain extent resemble inventories--these are the ways the group thinks of kinship relations; these are their laws and traditions; this is how their government is organized; these are their rituals and ceremonies; that sort of thing. This kind of ethnographic description is later used as evidence for cultural analysis, cultural comparisons, and cultural histories. <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Yet when ethnographers become narrators, portraying as much as describing, telling anecdotes based on their personal encounters, anecdotes that encapsulate the meanings and offer grounds for interpretation--not analysis--of this or that cultural behavior, then our tales take on literary qualities, because they exhibit such things as individual characters, settings and scenes, point-of-view and narrative reliability. But because truth-telling is our goal, it would be highly unusual for any ethnographer, narrating in the first person, to present themself as an unreliable narrator and impossible to offer up an ethnography as fiction, unless it were meant as satire or comedy--in which case, the audience would need to be let in on the ruse sooner or later. Or not; there are some famous exceptions, such as Carlos Castaneda's once-popular narrative ethnographies on the teachings of a Mexican shaman he called Don Juan. <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I was, also, curious about the deliberate juxtaposition of ethnographic and naturalist writings in this section, suggesting that describing “peoples” is, or at least was, during the early European colonization of the Asian, African, and American continents, not altogether different from describing esoteric plants and animals. Such a juxtaposition also reflects empire, but is it a recognition of similarities in these literatures, "ethnographic" and naturalistic, of the 17th and 18th centuries? Or might it reveal a residual settler colonialism in the Anthology editors' thinking? More on that in a later blog post. Third, I was struck by the Anthology editors' apparent reluctance to use the accepted term "travel literature" to describe this kind of writing. Travel literature is an ancient genre; portions of Herodotus' history fall into this category, while perhaps the 13th-century <i>Travels of Marco Polo</i> is the most famous example, both from a period that predates European colonialism. Anthropology, and to some extent ethnomusicology and folklore, have a history of ambivalence toward travelers' accounts of exotic lands and peoples; on the one hand, they may contain new information that makes a genuine contribution to knowledge; on the other, the travelers are amateurs after all and therefore their observations cannot be taken at face value. Indeed, as the 20th century wore on, professional, advanced degreed anthropologists increasingly got out of their studies and into the "field," traveling themselves to the field sites where the peoples lived whose cultures they wished to describe. They thought of themselves as scientists, and made a distinction between themselves and the untrained amateurs, tourists whose observations were haphazard, their judgments subjective and often prejudiced; whereas these scholar-scientists considered themselves objective documentarians and analysts pursuing knowledge in a thorough, systematic, unbiased and objective fashion. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This conception of ethnography as a scientific endeavor began to unravel during the period of the great social movements of the latter 1960s and early 1970s, and by 1990 or so many cultural anthropologists, if not archeologists and linguists, had largely abandoned the idea that their methodology was ever scientific in the sense of the ideal that it was impersonal, objective, unbiased, and replicable. (Of course, critics of science also claimed that objectivity was a myth in all scientific endeavor, even natural science.) Indeed, in the face of post-colonial independence movements, cultural anthropologists began to realize that their field was part of the legacy of empire; that in many cases access to "other" cultures in faraway lands was possible (and relatively safe) only because of the protection of colonial governments. And in the 1980s, cultural anthropology (and, a little later, ethnomusicology) became a locus for debates over such things as cultural appropriation and theft; the relevance of post-structuralist thinking; and of course the literary qualities of narrative ethnography--and whether narrative ethnography was fiction, or whether it was only "like" fiction. It was in the context of these old debates--advanced but never settled--that I first pondered the term "literary ethnography" and its application to the literature of travel and exploration written by European explorers and colonists in the New World beginning in the late 15th century. I'll say more about these topics in a subsequent blog post. <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><br /></span></p>Jeff Todd Titonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10384565652765905576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4200147945040702557.post-47438629426806981882022-10-24T13:54:00.006-04:002022-10-24T21:01:03.739-04:00Ecological Imaginaries 2<p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2UdGHzf3Jn3ov-k7CJECzAdywT3M1zn5aiiRGCso72c8VCYvp1riJCelAAbHkxbJX_DyVpM23ei5UFUyavw3liYloZoU86tvsQyU5DDt8C4F3n1f7J2GOBZq5JDnwQU5akIfpPXi3YqYJjabrFg7kXaeqyJpEIyKNKTr7VcQ2HYz9AIXYZaCMN8vr6w/s4000/Tree%20of%20Many%20Colors.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2UdGHzf3Jn3ov-k7CJECzAdywT3M1zn5aiiRGCso72c8VCYvp1riJCelAAbHkxbJX_DyVpM23ei5UFUyavw3liYloZoU86tvsQyU5DDt8C4F3n1f7J2GOBZq5JDnwQU5akIfpPXi3YqYJjabrFg7kXaeqyJpEIyKNKTr7VcQ2HYz9AIXYZaCMN8vr6w/w400-h300/Tree%20of%20Many%20Colors.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Crabapple tree of many colors, Oct. 22, 2022. Photo by J. T. Titon<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">“Ecological imaginaries” is but one kind of imaginary, but in the past ten years this idea has become increasingly useful as ecology in all senses of the word gains traction. A bit of background is in order before introducing two more ecological imaginaries. </span><span style="font-size: medium;">Imaginaries
are ideas, not things; they are social products of a collective human
imagination. Like myths, they are believed in; they are thought to be true, or they deserve to be made so. </span><span style="font-size: medium;">An example is the idea of </span><span style="font-size: medium;">“the rule of law.</span><span style="font-size: medium;">” </span><span style="font-size: medium;">The best known imaginary is the “social imaginary,” i.e., the network of ideas that individuals in a particular social group have about their society, what it is, how it operates, and how one should behave as a member of that society—the rules, principles, laws, values and the assumptions that people believe (imagine) govern their social interactions, and their meanings. For Jürgen Habermas, it was “the massive background of an intersubjectively shared lifeworld.” <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Benedict Anderson’s concept of the “imagined community” has been influential among folklorists, ethnomusicologists and anthropologists. Anderson was thinking primarily of an imagined socio-political community, often based in ethnic, regional, and racial ties. So, for instance, a nation such as "England" or "the United States" when regarded as a whole, integrated society embodies an imagined community. The idea of the folk community, as a comparatively undifferentiated, pre-industrial, peasant or Indigenous social group, </span><span style="font-size: medium;">with its ancient customs and oral traditions, and their performance as expressive culture,</span><span style="font-size: medium;"> is another example of a social imaginary. A more recent example of a social imaginary is the community invoked by the phrase "Christian nationalism." <br /><br />In the previous post I’ve identified four ecological imaginaries all related to beliefs about nature: pastoral, the “land of Cockaigne,” untrammeled wilderness, and self-regulation (organicism and the balance of nature). Here I will identify two more among many others. The first is Lorraine Code’s identification of an ecological imaginary (as she calls it) which attempts “to enact principles of ideal cohabitation,” or living together. Code views this “ecological imaginary” as based in the ecological principle/assumption of interdependence (or what others have called relationality and reciprocity) among living beings, a principle that, for example, I have called an ecological rationality (Titon 2013) and invoked more specifically in my sound ecology project, in which this interdependence is both signaled and secured by co-presence through sonic connections (Titon 2015, 2021). Code’s project is ongoing and difficult to summarize on account of numerous digressions—one might say the same thing about sound ecology—whereas she is incisive in her description of the social imaginary of “mastery” (Val Plumwood’s term) and the “autonomous individual”: “The instituted social imaginary of the affluent white western-northern world is one of taken-for-granted availability and access: a way of life where individual self-reliance is a virtue [positioned so as] to achieve their ‘goals’ and fulfill their ‘needs.’ Such needs are said to be natural, the sine qua non of a viable human life; scarcity is temporary and contingent: it can and should be ‘fixed’” (Code 2010, 30). Mastery involves control over the self and control over others: political mastery, and mastery over the external world; and thus they require management. <br /><br />The second ecological imaginary I would add here is that of scientific realism, a set of assumptions based in the idea that the external world has an existence apart from our human perceptions of it, and that it is knowable by means of a series of epistemic operations, perhaps the most familiar being the so-called “scientific method” of inductive reasoning: observation, hypothesis, experiment, measurement, and conclusion. Scientific realism acknowledges organic wholes but proceeds towards functional analysis by means of reducing wholes to constituent parts, and parts to their constituent parts, and so on, studying the structures of those components and their interactions. The science of ecology appears to have always contained both the ecological imaginary of ecological rationality biased toward intersubjective understanding, organic holism, interrelation, balance, and interdependence; and the ecological imaginary of an objective and reductive scientific method, currently in favor among ecological scientists, that portrays nature as in continual flux, subjected to frequent disturbance and without an overall tendency, absent human interference, toward climax equilibrium and natural balance. <br /><br />All six of these ecological imaginaries reflect Western intellectual history. There are additional perspectives. Folk, Indigenous, and non-Western social groups have their own ecological imaginaries, their own particular ideas concerning nature and the socio-political world. Earlier this year in this blog I wrote about “settler ecology,” prompted by an intervention from Kyle Powys Whyte from an Indigenous perspective. The diversity of environmentalisms is based in diverse ecological imaginaries. <br /><br />References<br /><br />Code, Lorraine. 2010. “Particularity, Epistemic Responsibility, and the Ecological Imaginary.” <i>Philosophy of Education</i> 2010: 23-34.<br /><br />Titon, Jeff Todd. 2013. “The Nature of Ecomusicology.” <i>Música e Cultura: revista da ABET</i> 8, 8-18.<br /><br />Titon, Jeff Todd. 2015. “Exhibiting Music in a Sound Community.” <i>Ethnologies</i> 37 (1): 23-41.<br /><br />Titon, Jeff Todd. 2021. “Sustainability and a Sound Ecology.” In <i>Toward a Sound Ecology: New and Selected Essays</i>, 254-276. Bloomington: Indiana U. Press.<br /></span></p>Jeff Todd Titonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10384565652765905576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4200147945040702557.post-22016445007521121242022-09-30T20:57:00.004-04:002022-09-30T20:58:11.056-04:00Ecological Imaginaries 1<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTHVRQJlPnJeqz7bphMERCYSzH18TyAmcQjwzm9CrmeUx4pAVv-Ifq0GsazTTCn_UUg4NhDPrO3xcS4nnot9Qwk41arjFUGEJ0OduIUCWiDTFekAYiiXCIpLeFBaJSAhZ4_sXcw0eCMYrb_m1_-o7ToNr8SA5SoFT5d6BAO6mr1DuNeKY6yk5JNb8iiA/s1300/Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder_-_The_Land_of_Cockaigne_-_WGA3507.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="873" data-original-width="1300" height="269" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTHVRQJlPnJeqz7bphMERCYSzH18TyAmcQjwzm9CrmeUx4pAVv-Ifq0GsazTTCn_UUg4NhDPrO3xcS4nnot9Qwk41arjFUGEJ0OduIUCWiDTFekAYiiXCIpLeFBaJSAhZ4_sXcw0eCMYrb_m1_-o7ToNr8SA5SoFT5d6BAO6mr1DuNeKY6yk5JNb8iiA/w400-h269/Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder_-_The_Land_of_Cockaigne_-_WGA3507.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Land of Cockaigne, painting by Pieter Bruegel the elder, 1567<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Our Diverse Environmentalist Research Team faculty seminar will be discussing aspects of the topic “ecological imaginaries” starting in November. Each of us is to prepare some thoughts on this concept which has many possibilities. Here are four that occur to me immediately. There are some others I want to investigate, but this will be a start.</span><br /></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> 1. Pastoral as ecological imaginary. This is the Arcadian tradition, in which humans live in harmony with and in nature. Literally of course it evokes shepherds and their flocks in the countryside, but symbolically pastoral does a great deal of work in the Romantic traditions of literature and philosophy, whether in German <i>naturphilosophie</i> or the poetry of Wordsworth and Coleridge’s <i>Lyrical Ballads</i>. Thoreau’s <i>Walden</i> is usually regarded as pastoral, and the ecocritic Leo Marx worked American pastoral into an explanation of American intellectual history and its ambivalence toward industrialism. This Romantic ambivalence is also responsible, of course, for the concept of “folk,” <i>das volk</i>, as an uneasiness with modernism—not just industrialism, but also economic rationality ("economic man") and reductionist Western science.<br /> 2. Related to pastoral and a projection of “folk” is the ecological imaginary of the “Land of Cockaigne,” a medieval alternative universe of pleasure and plenty, a utopian paradise of license. The 13th century French poem portrayed a land where people did not have to work, goods were freely available, game gave itself up to hunters, fish leapt out of the water and into the cooking kettle, and people never aged or died. There are some parallels with visions of the Christian heaven here. A 20th-century song, “The Big Rock Candy Mountain,” expresses the ecological imaginary of Cockaigne as a hobo’s paradise where hens lay soft-boiled eggs, trees leaf out in cigarettes, and lakewater is whiskey. That song was composed by “Haywire Mac” Harry McClintock around the turn of the 20th century and first recorded by him in 1928. Since that recording it has become widely sung and known in variant forms, even appearing in a 2005 Burger King commercial. <br /> 3. A third ecological imaginary is the idea of untrammeled wilderness, wild nature untouched by human intervention. The Romans had a word for this, <i>res nullius</i>, which they distinguished from <i>res commones</i> (commons, things that by their nature could not be owned, such as the air mantle and the oceans), <i>res publicae</i> (public things, owned by the state, such as roads and bridges), and <i>res privatae</i> (private things). <i>Res nullius</i> (no one's things) was a kind of <i>terra incognita</i>; it was conceived of as that part of the world that had not (yet) been “captured” by human beings. Wild nature is not peaceful nor is it pastoral; as Colonial Governor William Bradford wrote in 1640 of Massachussetts when the first European settlers came, that the land was filled with “wild beasts and wild men.” But this is of course a frontier imaginary; the “wild men” had been transforming the land for millennia by hunting, farming, fishing, burning to clear the land, and so on. Thoreau thought he had experienced “untrammeled nature” when, as he relates in <i>The Maine Woods</i>, he became frightened while descending Maine’s Mt. Katahdin and was surrounded by the rocky landscape that looked to him untouched by humans—it might as well have been the far side of the moon as far as he was concerned.<br /> 4. A fourth ecological imaginary, related to the first two, is the notion of a self-regulating or balanced nature, or the ecosystems of the world as organic wholes, most recently expressed on a planetary scale by Lovelock and Margulis’ concept of <i>Gaia</i>. Although the idea of a balance of nature can be found in Greek thought, Gilbert White’s <i>The History of Selborne</i>, and of course in the Romantic philosophical and literary traditions, as well as pastoral, it has also captivated a number of ecological scientists and is usually expressed in concepts such as “climax” or “equilibrium.” Related to holism and organicism, it is not currently in fashion, but for much of the last century it vied with its opposite, the idea that the normal state of nature was not equilibrium but rather disturbance, flux and change until in the century’s last few decades it was largely abandoned. But this is not to say that balances do not exist in nature; they do: but the idea that nature overall and absent the hand of human intervention (itself as much a fantasy as Hobbes’ idea of a “state of nature”) tends toward balance is not widely believed by ecological scientists today. </span><br /></p>Jeff Todd Titonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10384565652765905576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4200147945040702557.post-2555333488926714862022-07-12T19:53:00.002-04:002022-07-14T19:53:00.585-04:00Efficiency or curiosity? A few words on liberal education<p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9yiwsgK2qwInksfLjQOpW1HG4rekuZfUFQ6RibfH5pkVoudbb32XN0A6iC2OcM9Is-IV7ZnHBcxmTg23nWgCb1nmjL9MYzeFjQa2ej4pQS-a2pElHm_73dPrJOlQnrmulKH6WNn9jO3MwubwY8N-GpctdERcipcGwtVcuyf0H0IIsAjK-3u0tzgRXiw/s1800/03_library30.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1187" data-original-width="1800" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9yiwsgK2qwInksfLjQOpW1HG4rekuZfUFQ6RibfH5pkVoudbb32XN0A6iC2OcM9Is-IV7ZnHBcxmTg23nWgCb1nmjL9MYzeFjQa2ej4pQS-a2pElHm_73dPrJOlQnrmulKH6WNn9jO3MwubwY8N-GpctdERcipcGwtVcuyf0H0IIsAjK-3u0tzgRXiw/w400-h264/03_library30.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">University of Minnesota-Duluth, the library<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">A few days ago I read about a man I'd met at an event five years ago, a man who asked me why it was that education in the humanities wasn't more efficient? We were sitting at the head table at a luncheon to be followed by an award ceremony. I replied by asking him what he did for a living before he assumed his present position as Chair of the Board of Regents of the University of Minnesota, my graduate school alma mater. He said he had been director of an electric utility company in Duluth. I replied, saying I understood how important efficiency was in electrical production, distribution and consumption. But in a liberal education, intellectual curiosity is the opposite of efficient. Curiosity takes time, </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;">time to formulate questions, </span>time to explore, to go up blind alleys and then double back, ponder possible answers, pause among different interpretations of similar phenomena, to wonder at metaphor and leave room for feelings. I wasn't sure he agreed, but he didn't press the matter. We finished our lunch, and the event continued to a conclusion. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Now five years later his photograph has just appeared in a news story in <i>The Chronicle of Higher Education</i>. I recognized him at once. The story was not complimentary. It seems that he was a candidate for the position of Interim Chancellor of the University of Minnesota at Duluth. He had resigned from the Board of Regents to throw his hat in the ring only a day before the deadline to apply. Five others had applied for the job, but he was the only one interviewed; and then the search committee recommended him for it. Apparently the President of the flagship Twin Cities campus (Minneapolis-St. Paul) had at the last minute urged him to apply. <a href="https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/u-of-m-board-of-regent-member-criticized-for-seeking-university-of-minnesota-duluth-chancellor-job/">For a number of reasons</a>, the situation seemed fishy to a former Governor of the state, another regent, and a law professor, who claimed that this man ought not to be confirmed as Interim Chancellor because of a conflict of interest. The situation has since escalated. It reminded me of the embattled Chancellor of the University of Maine system, recipient of three no-confidence votes from faculty at three branches of the university, including the flagship campus in Orono. As I write, no decision has yet been made. Interestingly, one of his defenders on the search committee argued that his experience as a utility company executive showed that he was well-prepared and qualified to succeed as the head of a university. As for the Chancellor of the University of Maine system, his contract was just renewed, but for one year only; and before being hired as Chancellor, he had served as Governor of the State of Connecticut. <span> </span></span></p>Jeff Todd Titonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10384565652765905576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4200147945040702557.post-32158240916671271822022-05-31T15:52:00.003-04:002022-05-31T15:52:50.420-04:00Festival El Aleph lecture: A Sound Ecology<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLzDN3g5ASPVNfDY-lCYgOUiM4FQpoQ_5AginC7KPPjruJqtOa9yLuuXFz3mT7WX78zQ0gHX2hk9Xleanab6lNkJKwPZdgerHUT3GkjzqNW53HpJnqLk5NdixRkBQxCWpGQ8_FOO76yUk0W_gEb_cEyXq5CeNZ2tJWys3-fminsjcjfl5CgfulKwdZ8A/s768/boletin-032-768x432.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="432" data-original-width="768" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLzDN3g5ASPVNfDY-lCYgOUiM4FQpoQ_5AginC7KPPjruJqtOa9yLuuXFz3mT7WX78zQ0gHX2hk9Xleanab6lNkJKwPZdgerHUT3GkjzqNW53HpJnqLk5NdixRkBQxCWpGQ8_FOO76yUk0W_gEb_cEyXq5CeNZ2tJWys3-fminsjcjfl5CgfulKwdZ8A/w400-h225/boletin-032-768x432.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p> <span style="font-size: medium;">Last November I accepted an invitation to offer an internet (virtual) lecture in the academic component of the Festival El Aleph, which ran this month of May between the 19th and the 29th. The Festival, sponsored by the National University of Mexico, is a major ten-day event that includes live presentations, podcasts, along with television, radio, and internet components and that features music, theatre, dance and artistic presentations along with scientific and scholarly lectures and demonstrations. All of this is intended to bring together the frontiers of the arts and sciences. In this year, 2022, the theme was Planetary crisis, with particular emphasis on ecology and environment. Most of the presentations came from Latin American scholars, scientists and artists; it was an honor to be one of only three lecturers from the United States.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> After preparing my 50-minute lecture, a summary for the general public of my sound ecology project, I delivered it in advance to the Festival via Zoom, last March. They recorded my presentation (in English), letting me know that they would prepare Spanish subtitles, and that it would be broadcast over the internet on May 25th. I watched it then along with the others, and to my surprise and delight found that not only had the Festival provided subtitles, they had also found and edited into it numerous still photos and video clips to provide background illustrations for what I was talking about. Instead of the usual "talking head" presentation, this was far more interesting visually. Friends and colleagues who watched it told me that it was, also, the clearest and most inviting presentation of my project that they've yet encountered. (My first presentation, at an earlier stage of the project, was in 2015; the latest written presentation is the last chapter of my book, <i>Toward a Sound Ecology: New and Selected Essays</i>, published by Indiana University Press in 2020.) </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> As of this writing, the Festival still has my "sound ecology" lecture on its website and ready for streaming. All are invited to see it, at this link:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">https://culturaunam.mx/elaleph2022/eventos-2022/una-ecologia-del-sonido/</span></p><p><br /></p>Jeff Todd Titonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10384565652765905576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4200147945040702557.post-79434649873009493502022-04-30T19:47:00.002-04:002022-04-30T19:52:09.711-04:00Settler Ecology and Natural Rights<p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSNHPdJ2e_A238--AdcC3w1P49XqngJQfSQq3KdWZOmn2ayivJQlKhMXqhIHi8Vq4nBOQmyIZuf2qowdDGadZQPncjKsCwrohzFCT4tXJx6z4S2MOn-BdmiCfYfdKmPUTPFpsTHtu2QzhwpAuTyspgJfFADHEohRU90fp3M5BvZpktf89SPQ7ljhahpA/s993/Whanganui_River.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="993" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSNHPdJ2e_A238--AdcC3w1P49XqngJQfSQq3KdWZOmn2ayivJQlKhMXqhIHi8Vq4nBOQmyIZuf2qowdDGadZQPncjKsCwrohzFCT4tXJx6z4S2MOn-BdmiCfYfdKmPUTPFpsTHtu2QzhwpAuTyspgJfFADHEohRU90fp3M5BvZpktf89SPQ7ljhahpA/w400-h266/Whanganui_River.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Whanganui River. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> This blog entry follows on from my July 31, 2021 <a href="https://sustainablemusic.blogspot.com/2021/07/">blog entry</a> on Environmental Sustainability, Personhood, Legal Rights, and Indigenous Ecological Knowledges. Here I frame the matters under consideration in terms of settler ecology and add some new ideas and information. <a href="https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/yjmr/vol5/iss2/7/">Elsewhere</a> I’ve written that because natural rights doctrine (the human right to life and liberty) derives from nature, then self-evidently nature possesses these same rights. The counter argument is that human beings are exceptional in having consciousness, agency, language, etc. But this human exceptionalism is under challenge from neurobiologists, behavioral ecologists, and philosophers, not to mention animal rights activists and scientists who study plant intelligence and communication. Take, for instance, the 2012 <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528836-200-animals-are-conscious-and-should-be-treated-as-such/">Cambridge (University) Declaration on Consciousness</a>, in which several prominent scientists declared that “Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness.” <br /> If, then, more than human living creatures have consciousness, agency, language (gestural as well as sonic), and so on, it would appear that Western ways of thinking must grant them at least a moral right to life and liberty. Do other living beings—not only human beings—similarly have a legal right? What are the advantages and disadvantages to positioning animals (and possibly plants, and indeed entire ecoystems) within the modern, Euro-American legal framework of rights and obligations (duties) that largely derive from the social contract and justice theories that began during the Enlightenment? What is the relationship between such a rights regime for the environment and settler ecology? What possibly more desirable alternatives are available?<br /> At least since Christopher Stone’s provocative book <i><a href="https://www.environmentandsociety.org/mml/should-trees-have-standing-law-morality-and-environment">Should Trees Have Standing</a></i> (originally published in 1972)--that is, legal standing--nature’s natural rights have been invoked in the US to protect environmental features such as endangered species, landforms, and ecosystems against encroachment from developers. That is an application of ecojustice, and it is represented by a dissenting strain, neither colonialist nor extractivist, within US settler ecological thought: one that runs through Henry David Thoreau and Aldo Leopold to contemporary conservation biologists and environmental activists. Town governments in Pennsylvania, for example, have <a href="https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/scholarlywork/1282308-challenging-corporate-%22personhood%22--energy-companies-and-the-%22rights%22-of-non-humans">passed ordinances</a> granting legal rights to certain landforms in order to prevent fracking. They argued that if US law grants legal rights based on “personhood” to corporations, which corporate “persons” may have some kind of collective agency and intentionality, but lack consciousness, then landforms and ecosystems may also be considered persons and be granted similar rights. The latest example of such a lawsuit is occurring in Florida, where <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/04/18/a-lake-in-florida-suing-to-protect-itself">plaintiffs have gone to court</a> on behalf of a threatened ecosystem, Lake Mary Jane, in an effort to stop work on a nearby housing development. Needless to say, the fracking corporations quickly sued the Pennsylvania town governments, and the judges in the state courts ruled in their favor. Whether the same fate awaits Lake Mary Jane remains to be seen. <br /> Rights regime suits have been effective in some instances outside the US, however. Ecuador and New Zealand are cases in point, where ecosystems such as the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19452829.2020.1801610">Whanganui River</a>, and mountains have been granted the right to be respected and largely left alone. In those cases, the claims have been made not exclusively within a Euro-American legal framework of rights and personhood, but rather also by giving weight to Indigenous people’s beliefs concerning the rights and sentience of non-human natural beings, which requires thinking of them not as objects (as Western science does) but as subjects—that is, as living beings with their own forms of subjectivity, agency, consciousness, etc. In Ecuador, rights of nature are enshrined in its Constitution. That is not settler ecology. <br /></span></p>Jeff Todd Titonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10384565652765905576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4200147945040702557.post-19669593318335841612022-03-27T18:52:00.009-04:002022-04-07T19:34:34.573-04:00Leo Marx, an Appreciation of a Pioneering Eco-Critic<p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigxS3OvFNqo0IICayPYfKaOYv1PKvCvHJaaEBwHR43sUE1HBja2fpH_IgYFT3ETR4ZTkVQW9pBrO0bAYo7ps2BKEVh2hKKMRTNU6q5v3bGDGkYG5lLIC8lRdSZX6i7JDNSU3U_ghQhKJdR9uvdiB0TmVwrlQTFxGmebz9LeEN5KAMYYnJnrWidmZaXLA/s397/Leo%20Marx%201.tiff" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="397" data-original-width="331" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigxS3OvFNqo0IICayPYfKaOYv1PKvCvHJaaEBwHR43sUE1HBja2fpH_IgYFT3ETR4ZTkVQW9pBrO0bAYo7ps2BKEVh2hKKMRTNU6q5v3bGDGkYG5lLIC8lRdSZX6i7JDNSU3U_ghQhKJdR9uvdiB0TmVwrlQTFxGmebz9LeEN5KAMYYnJnrWidmZaXLA/w267-h320/Leo%20Marx%201.tiff" width="267" /></a></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Leo Marx, at Amherst College<br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> In college I studied American literature with Leo Marx (1919-2022), who died last week, aged 102. He also became my senior year honors thesis advisor. More than any of my other professors, he influenced my choice to go to graduate school. Leo had, in my junior year, published a book, <i>The Machine in the Garden</i>, which gained him a reputation among his peers as one of the foremost literary critics of his generation. The book’s thesis was original: that canonical American authors and painters, particularly in the last half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th, responded both positively and negatively to the growing dominance of industrial technology and the desire for material wealth by creating, through their arts, fictional alternatives, literary or visual portraits of American culture that drew on the pastoral literary tradition in a metaphorical way. Or, in the case of Henry David Thoreau, here was someone who didn't just write pastoral but for two years lived it, at Walden Pond, before returning to civilized life in Concord to write his masterpiece, <i>Walden</i>. American environmentalism may also be viewed through this lens of nature as American pastoral, and as a result Leo is now considered an early eco-critic. I might not have thought about Thoreau and sound had I not read, in Leo’s literature class, about the shrieking, belching train that became a symbol of the industrial transformation of pastoral America, in the “Sounds” chapter of <i>Walden</i>. Leo's mind and his way with literary, social, and political ideas is well illustrated in a <a href="https://shass.mit.edu/multimedia/video-2005-jay-gatsby-and-myth-american-origins">video</a> made in the early 2000s (amazingly, when he was near to 90 years old) of a lecture he gave at MIT on Fitzgerald's <i>The Great Gatsby</i>, the American Myth, and the invasion of Iraq. <br /> I graduated from Amherst College in 1965. Leo and I stayed in touch for about twenty years thereafter. In 1972, when I'd just begun teaching at Tufts University, Leo was briefly in the public eye (and on the front page of the <i>New York Times</i>) when he was joined by many others from the College, including its president, John William Ward, to block the entrance at Westover (Massachusetts) Air Force Base, protesting the Vietnam War. Leo, Bill Ward, and hundreds of faculty and students were arrested for doing so. In 1977 Leo left Amherst for MIT, to become a professor in their newly-formed interdisciplinary program in science, technology, and culture. One of my classmates who also knew him at Amherst said that Leo told him he was feeling that the town and College were too far away from the cultural and political mainstream. The move to MIT would bring him closer to where he decided that he wanted to be. He had spent 20 years living in a pastoral New England town, teaching in an idyllic liberal arts college where we, the students, having left our familiar homes, lived in a pastoral retreat ourselves, in a privileged educational and social, rural college community, before we entered the real world (as it then was called). Leo finally left Amherst's pastoral for the city of Boston. In so doing he showed, literally, what he had claimed in his book, that the pastoral worked better as a symbolic field than as a permanent habitation; yet his interest in the idea of American pastoral never departed. He retired in 1990 but continued teaching in the MIT program as a senior lecturer, until stopping at last in 2015 at the age of 94. Whether he felt that he had a better perch there than at Amherst I never knew. <br /> Leo had, also, been a pioneering scholar in the field of American Studies. Although he was not among the field's very founders, he was one of the founders' first students; and he soon became their friend and colleague. Their project, undertaken chiefly in the period from the latter part of the New Deal to the Vietnam War, was to examine the supposedly unique character and history of the United States as a democratic society and nation. They often did so by analyzing the cultural and historical meanings of themes like “the American dream,” or the Westward expansion of the frontier, or slavery and emancipation, women’s suffrage, the meaning of free speech, or immigration and the “melting pot.” They examined historical and contemporary responses to facts of importance to the development of American culture—New England Puritanism, for example, or cotton plantations and textile mills—and found in them symbols expressing both affirmation and despair over the past, present and future of the United States. However, the post-Vietnam War generation of American Studies scholars—my generation—did not think that Leo’s generation had gone far enough in exposing the violence and suppression in American history and culture: genocide of the Indigenous inhabitants of the United States; colonialist exploitation and transformation of the continent; continuing, institutionalized racial, ethnic, class, and gender discrimination; an increasingly imperialist foreign policy; and so on. Indeed, Leo’s generation was (wrongly, I think) attacked as believers in and therefore defenders of the American experiment as a whole. They did believe in the possibility of America, but they were critics of American society and well aware that its promise had yet to come close to being realized. <br /></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSl26TXP9VH3mgyqNLFftrd0bDFxmreohY10BSVdbKQrvQnqkmboU4q6GmsMf63lGmIms2AtJZUuEkBKTg0UuRMApL989GjZej1iOXSGJ6pvL9mc4eRf1L6sOZWmVq6lvHwUIC03o-PQGu3TSKHojxlvEIUKYR4dk2REjO5ssnzYg6unJFwtvfMMYqfw/s643/The%20Lackawanna%20Valley%20-%20George%20Innes%20c%201855.tiff" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="643" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSl26TXP9VH3mgyqNLFftrd0bDFxmreohY10BSVdbKQrvQnqkmboU4q6GmsMf63lGmIms2AtJZUuEkBKTg0UuRMApL989GjZej1iOXSGJ6pvL9mc4eRf1L6sOZWmVq6lvHwUIC03o-PQGu3TSKHojxlvEIUKYR4dk2REjO5ssnzYg6unJFwtvfMMYqfw/w400-h261/The%20Lackawanna%20Valley%20-%20George%20Innes%20c%201855.tiff" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">American pastoral: The Lackawanna Valley (George Innes, c 1855).<br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Leo spent some time fighting a rear-guard action on behalf of his generation’s “myth-symbol school” of American Studies, as it had come to be called (after Henry Nash Smith’s 1950 book, <i>Virgin Land</i>, on the American West as myth and symbol). Although he summed up his defense in <a href="https://bostonreview.net/articles/leo-marx-believing-america/">a 2003 article</a> in the <i>Boston Review</i>, he had also been busy as an eco-critic, following the path he charted in <i>The Machine in the Garden</i> into further studies in literature, technology, and the environment. He found like-minded scholar-activist colleagues in the environmental movement. Today ecomusicologists and environmental humanists recognize him more for his eco-criticism and pioneering work in studying the impact of technology on American culture, than for his participation in the development of the American Studies movement. <br /> Recently I watched an oral history interview that an Amherst professor and former colleague did with Leo, as part of the Friends of the Amherst College Library series. Leo was then in his early 90s and seemed a little bored on that occasion, but now and again he revealed some things that I hadn’t realized about him. I had known that he taught at the University of Minnesota during the heyday of its American Studies program; in fact, he steered me there for my graduate studies. But I hadn’t known that Minnesota denied him tenure. He did not say why, nor did it seem to trouble him. Fortunately for him, and for Amherst College, he found a home there directly after leaving Minnesota. Leo also spoke about his role as a catalyst in the College’s anti-Vietnam War protests. He said some of the more conservative faculty members thought of him as a troublemaker.</span></p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjykVhGhINq7VrLm6oAd3jdiRI-IA5P0T31q7Gotp2YaSglXH-ls2vWEyVNMu5Tud7qQqZU2n1Ti8sHi0Slha-fzsGQsbqN1nNnWCs7hzQHc_IvbQNYPgXQ7IRveH-Ct_ysKhpeI9TzouDlzADxlAMyWfocVyuk2hnZs6O14s3M-fQMTm_qJRJgDFPTDA/s694/Leo%20Marx%201985%20.tiff" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="590" data-original-width="694" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjykVhGhINq7VrLm6oAd3jdiRI-IA5P0T31q7Gotp2YaSglXH-ls2vWEyVNMu5Tud7qQqZU2n1Ti8sHi0Slha-fzsGQsbqN1nNnWCs7hzQHc_IvbQNYPgXQ7IRveH-Ct_ysKhpeI9TzouDlzADxlAMyWfocVyuk2hnZs6O14s3M-fQMTm_qJRJgDFPTDA/s320/Leo%20Marx%201985%20.tiff" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Leo Marx in 1985; photo by Jerome Liebling<br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"> We also had a few other things in common besides Minnesota, I realized, when he spoke in the interview about the transition he had to make when he went from Amherst, a liberal arts college where he taught undergraduates exclusively, to MIT, where he was suddenly responsible for the professional training and future careers of graduate students. I made a similar transition about ten years later, moving from teaching (mainly) undergraduates at Tufts, to directing the PhD program in ethnomusicology at Brown. I don’t know if Leo made the transition easily. I know I didn’t. Leo did speak about the difficulties he had teaching undergraduates at MIT who were already well into their scientific specialties. I didn’t have that problem at Brown; I had a different one. I didn’t like the ways in which the professional concerns of the PhD students in our ethnomusicology program often made it inadvisable for them to follow the paths where their intellectual curiosities were taking them, to explore avenues of learning that were exciting but probably would not have a career payoff. It took me some time to reconcile to that, and to realize more completely my own responsibilities to the students’ careers.<br /> Although it has continued as an interdisciplinary field, American Studies fragmented in the 1980s and 1990s into a series of subjects: studies in social history, labor history, American minorities, race and gender studies, and so forth, effectively abandoning the idea that there was anything unique or unifying about American culture. In today’s even more polarized America, the belief that there is, or was, such a thing as a process of Americanization that resulted in, or was moving towards, a common culture, appears quaint—or, possibly, the kind of nostalgia that a segment of the population feels for a once-great America, but as Leo and his generation of scholars showed, its myths and symbols revealed it to be much more of a complex mixture of hope and despair, than a land of liberty and justice for all. <br /></span><p></p>Jeff Todd Titonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10384565652765905576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4200147945040702557.post-29969868693444380252022-02-01T12:16:00.004-05:002022-06-02T19:32:45.354-04:00Settler Ecology 3: Kyle Powys Whyte's Cultural Ecology<p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhlAZr71Z2fOj7OoM-0rtHCYVj7yiis0h4ZGqmpxtMWvLrg8UYn-p7E2Bj1LihgVwaqSQNEPpvbSfvKaIovaLSGUotBXKgEgy4J5jNAu_iEU7q-8RgVYpzqlpWHCgK9UB-45COcthVoPZafN8s_6VNonGqP_MZtTYb0BN-gwt2t4I2tNn05n38yXHZkSw=s2568" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1524" data-original-width="2568" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhlAZr71Z2fOj7OoM-0rtHCYVj7yiis0h4ZGqmpxtMWvLrg8UYn-p7E2Bj1LihgVwaqSQNEPpvbSfvKaIovaLSGUotBXKgEgy4J5jNAu_iEU7q-8RgVYpzqlpWHCgK9UB-45COcthVoPZafN8s_6VNonGqP_MZtTYb0BN-gwt2t4I2tNn05n38yXHZkSw=w400-h238" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /> <span> Kyle Powys Whyte (2018) uses the term "settler ecology" in a somewhat different sense. By "settler ecology" he does not refer to the science of ecology. Rather, he means what geographers call human geography and anthropologists call cultural ecology, in reference to a people's attitudes toward nature as expressed in how they affect and live in the habitat of the place(s) where they reside. For Whyte, settler ecology is expressed in Euro-American colonialist and extractivist land settlement patterns in the New World, their means of obtaining food, clothing, and shelter; their relationships with other and former inhabitants of the places they occupy; and their material culture and built environment as can be seen historically and in traveling today throughout the North American agricultural and industrial landscape. Whyte is interested in the Euro-American settler colonialist human geography that dominated the natural world and transformed it while committing the violence that disrupted and altered the lives of Indigenous peoples who were living on that land when the Euro-Americans arrived in the New World. Invoking cultural ecology in this way, Whyte turns upside down the early 20th century anthropologists' concept of cultural ecology, with its residue of cultural evolutionism from so-called primitive to civilized as shown in adaptations from nomadic hunting, gathering, herding and horticulture to settled agriculture. Instead, Whyte employs cultural ecology to show how maladaptive “civilized” adaptations are to the natural environment and its inhabitants. Whyte's analysis goes further than an environmental history of settler empires (Griffiths and Robin 1997) in that he identifies certain features of a people's onto-epistemology that partially explain their resulting adaptations. To what extent is Whyte's "settler ecology" similar to and different from my usage of the same term, where I anchor the expression of this onto-epistemology in Euro-American ecological science's concept of "ecosystem services?"<br /></span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>References: </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>Tom Griffiths and Libby Robin, <i>Ecology and Empire: Environmental History of Settler Societies</i>. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>Kyle Powys Whyte, "Settler Colonialism, Ecology, and Environmental Justice." <i>Environment and Society: Advances in Research</i> 9 (2018): 125-144. </span></span> </span></span></p>Jeff Todd Titonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10384565652765905576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4200147945040702557.post-77799962888824633942022-01-11T20:37:00.000-05:002022-01-11T20:37:58.038-05:00Settler Ecology 2<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjlW1WBStjdth8JGEo7r06DFfWgJd8k4fJQhcAnmrhi4d03Ntx5c_uyEZ1AewuaST9-S-SZfn-pFayIGIUYcGqcIg-tY5Q21Vom3-ZI8aPgW5x5b1KFH6rYm4KCazkBY7Mnq2PPGYLxc6ki1BfDcyhSqBw8c2AkmernAEZ5-z-U_vDNgPnnFLAF1Lh5mA=s1200" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1200" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjlW1WBStjdth8JGEo7r06DFfWgJd8k4fJQhcAnmrhi4d03Ntx5c_uyEZ1AewuaST9-S-SZfn-pFayIGIUYcGqcIg-tY5Q21Vom3-ZI8aPgW5x5b1KFH6rYm4KCazkBY7Mnq2PPGYLxc6ki1BfDcyhSqBw8c2AkmernAEZ5-z-U_vDNgPnnFLAF1Lh5mA=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Old apple trees in new snow. Photo by Jeff Todd Titon, 2006.<br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /> The concept of natural capital signals the introduction of an ecological, conservationist economics that injects sustainability considerations into productivity, growth and development. This ecological economics differs from mainstream economics, which conceives of natural resources rather differently--as "land" and not as capital. Traditionally, capital is defined as the stock of materials—equipment, buildings, supplies—used to produce goods and services. A defining characteristic of capital is that it is used to produce not only goods and services but also additional capital. Land, in the traditional view, represents the abundant inputs to production that nature provides: these include trees, mineral deposits, water and wind. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Ecological economists take a different view. Considered as capital, natural resources are, like other forms of capital, limited. They also represent the Earth's life support systems. These limitations, as well as the consequences of their use (and abuse), must therefore be factored into cost/benefit analyses. Peter Neill, director of the World Ocean Observatory, defines natural capital as “the stock of renewable and non-renewable natural resources—energy, plants, animals, air, wind, water, soils, and minerals that must be included in any benefit analysis of production, its actual cost, and its real consequence for human benefit worldwide, all now mostly overlooked and left out of the equation” (1). </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Mainstream (i.e., neo-classical) economists do consider natural resources in the costs of production, but not as a brake upon
productivity and growth. “It appears that our ability to conserve these
resources is growing more rapidly [due to technological advances] than
their supplies are dwindling,” writes the Harvard professor who authored
the most widely used introductory economics textbook in the US (2). Given this perspective, it is unsurprising that mainstream economists continue to look for technological solutions to problems such as global warming, habitat destruction, and species extinction. Ecological economists, on the other hand, claim that these problems can be better understood and addressed when natural resources are considered natural capital and factored into cost/benefit equations. In this way ecological economics represents an advance over mainstream economics. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> And yet the concept of natural capital remains an expression of settler ecology. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">(1) Neill, Peter. 2021. “The Ocean as Natural Capital.” <i>Working Waterfront</i> 35 (2): 17.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">(2) Mankiw, N. Gregory. 2012. <i>Principles of Economics</i>. 6th edition. Mason, Ohio: South Western Cengage Learning.<br /></span></p>Jeff Todd Titonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10384565652765905576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4200147945040702557.post-11727970258462381362022-01-07T12:11:00.011-05:002022-02-21T11:34:43.677-05:00Settler Ecology 1<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhtGATtvdUSqz-7VxwD42s5TipojKrxVHJisinIr-xmDcEqqwMkS_75yejxr6p_7R0lfoURxNzmMK2XOZuHFT-0eXY2e8dQAzz6PMdRZlTdipAAkcF5KsSoMoA4YFGtGu6JR4CiqFZDz0ottlQiLcHNlkn6KWVBp8y0zz96YBtR4Me5ypMAPmiHtA0fGA=s5000" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5000" data-original-width="3974" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhtGATtvdUSqz-7VxwD42s5TipojKrxVHJisinIr-xmDcEqqwMkS_75yejxr6p_7R0lfoURxNzmMK2XOZuHFT-0eXY2e8dQAzz6PMdRZlTdipAAkcF5KsSoMoA4YFGtGu6JR4CiqFZDz0ottlQiLcHNlkn6KWVBp8y0zz96YBtR4Me5ypMAPmiHtA0fGA=w509-h640" width="509" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bingham Canyon Copper Mine, 1942, courtesy Wikimedia Commons<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /> What is the relationship between settler colonialism and settler ecology? At first glance it might be thought that because ecology is the study of nature as a whole, ecologists would not be in the business of exploiting nature for the purpose of empire. But Indigenous scholars--Vine DeLoria and others who have followed in his footsteps--have indicted Western science for its role in aiding and abetting colonialism and empire. More: Kyle Powys Whyte explicitly identifies settler colonialism as an expression of settler ecology. What is the basis for this claim? It will require a few entries to explore this theme. Moreover, is ecology uniform? Or are there many ecologies, and even within ecological science, are there different, even opposing, schools of thought? Is there an ecology that is opposed to settler colonialism?<br /></p><p> In its most literal sense, settler ecology refers to the Euro-American science of ecology. Ecology has been defined from the outset as the scientific study of the relations among organisms and the environment (originally, the inorganic and organic environment; in more modern terminology the biotic and abiotic environment). Connotatively, however, because the adjective settler implies a people who settle and colonize a geographical place, it implies a colonial and extractive attitude toward the land and its inhabitants. In this sense it resonates with a dominant strain within contemporary ecosystem ecology that finds its characteristic expression in “ecosystem services” (nature's contribution to people). Nature, conceived as ecosystems, is regarded as resource capital, the stock of goods and services that nature provides for human beings. As the 2018 IPBES (Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) Report for the Americas delineates it, these resources include energy, and the raw physical, chemical and biological materials (including plants and animals) for making food, clothing, medicine, the built environment, industrial and consumer products of all kinds, and so on. Ecologists speak of natural capital, and ecological economists employ complex cost/benefit equations to predict and implement sustainable uses of natural capital that prevent its falling below carrying capacity, or the resource amounts necessary to reproduce and maintain a continuing sufficiency of supply. <br /><br /> Viewing nature as capital is not the only strain within Euro-American ecological science, however. If we look at the history of ecology from its beginnings in Haeckel's pioneering definitions of <i>oikologie</i> in the 1860s, we find that most scientists have regarded their enterprise as a so-called pure science; that is, as the study of relationships in nature rather than the management of those relationships. That said, ecological scientists have not hesitated to act as outside consultants to industry, government, and other institutions concerned with the environment when asked to do so, something that they in fact encouraged after World War II. Advocacy, on the other hand, has been regarded by the majority as out of bounds for ecological scientists who believe that it compromises the otherwise presumably objective, unbiased and disinterested stance that a scientist must embody if their opinions are to be believed. On the third hand, a minority of ecological scientists have ventured into advocacy and some have ventured directly into management of natural resources. I shall have more to say about that in later posts. For now, suffice to say that Euro-American ecological scientists do not present a united front, and that the "settler" attitude (colonialism, extractivism) toward nature does not apply to the majority who consider themselves students of nature, not managers. Nor does it apply to an "arcadian" strain within ecology, one that can be traced back to Gilbert White, Henry David Thoreau, and John Muir in which scientific reductionism is suspect while philosophical holism is prominent. This arcadian strain is sometimes disparaged as "Romantic" and idealistic, and it is (wrongly in my opinion) identified with settler colonialism and empire.<br /></p><p> To some extent the settler connotation aligns Euro-American ecology with the conservation movement’s doctrine of wise use (of resources), a doctrine identified with Gifford Pinchot in the early 20th century who advocated it in connection with forest sustainability by means of selective harvesting and other forms of stewardship. This doctrine can be seen as a precursor of ecosystem services. In the history of the conservation movement, Pinchot’s doctrine of wise use is contrasted with John Muir’s arcadian doctrine of set-asides, which is to say remote land that is left alone as natural wilderness, for the preservation of plant and animal species, to be used by humans only for contemplation and very light recreation such as hiking and canoeing. As we shall see, there were some ecologists who advocated for preservation of remote lands not for aesthetic contemplation or light recreation, but as natural areas to be left alone so that ecologists could study them over time.<br /><br /></p><p></p>Jeff Todd Titonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10384565652765905576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4200147945040702557.post-33503209190394590102021-12-31T22:13:00.002-05:002022-02-11T19:25:04.545-05:00Keeping Track of Writing Projects -- end of 2021<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi_SxGx-X76pnkiSyWSRkjaD5mivyX_cWWPXL_SreBcfA5vEXYpLtzu5HIJRzv2itP5yolkWpvcek8xcJBnlS5DSn5a6qfvRQK7XF_HG7Pl40CSpLXJmEt1k1ZpsOZcbqJCZxg3fH5VbUhILFPCruCDatBbo2ufkctGQOVWlEUW6hVSRjgE1xfSMWXKYg=s1046" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1046" data-original-width="853" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi_SxGx-X76pnkiSyWSRkjaD5mivyX_cWWPXL_SreBcfA5vEXYpLtzu5HIJRzv2itP5yolkWpvcek8xcJBnlS5DSn5a6qfvRQK7XF_HG7Pl40CSpLXJmEt1k1ZpsOZcbqJCZxg3fH5VbUhILFPCruCDatBbo2ufkctGQOVWlEUW6hVSRjgE1xfSMWXKYg=w326-h400" width="326" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Scholar interrupted at his writing, by Gerrit Dou, c. 1635<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /> It’s been more than a year since I <a href="https://sustainablemusic.blogspot.com/2020/10/">took stock</a> of the research and writing projects I’ve been working on. Which of them has been completed, which are published, which are still in progress, and what are the new ones? On <a href="https://brown.academia.edu/JeffToddTiton">my academia.edu page</a> I suggest that readers who want to know the answer to the question “What are you working on?” come to this blog to find out. It’s a question that academics often ask of each other when getting together for conversation at conferences. For the past couple of years, though, most conferences have been virtual; and the times when that question could be asked and answered diminished as conferences became far more focused on presenting information in organized sessions, with little time for ordinary conversation.<br /> Last October, then, I mentioned a few essays that were completed but not yet published, and a few more that remained incomplete. <br /> 1. “Ethical Considerations for Ethnomusicologists in the Midst of Environmental Crisis.” In August, 2020 I’d finished this essay for a book in progress edited by Jonathan Stock and Beverley Diamond called the <i>Routledge Companion to Ethics in Ethnomusicology</i>, to be published by Routledge. Then on October 23, 2020 I presented a brief portion of the chapter, virtually, at a roundtable at the annual conference of the Society for Ethnomusicology. On September 23, 2021 I received an email from Jonathan Stock saying that the editors were still waiting for a few more authors who agreed to write essays for the book to complete them—more than a year after the deadline—and that those of us who, like me, had finished up could expect to hear from the editors during the weeks ahead if they had any questions or concerns. That was the last I heard. It is not unusual for authors to go a few months beyond deadline in projects such as this one, but to go more than a year beyond it is uncommon. It is also a problem, in the sense that the other authors’ contributions become dated the longer publication is delayed. This is an issue that Aaron Allen and I also faced as editors of our book, <i>Sounds, Musics, Ecologies</i>. We have thirteen contributors, and each of them met the deadline. More on that book later in this post.<br /> 2. “Ethnography in the Study of Congregational Music.” This was a chapter on doing ethnographic fieldwork, with special attention to prospects and problems with ethnography in religious music-cultures. I’d been asked to write it in 2015; completed it in 2016; but no doubt some contributors went well beyond the deadline. I did not see my copyedited chapter until September of 2020. Having waited four years to get to this point, I was given 7 days to attend to any questions from the copyeditor, and make any alterations. This is typical of scholarly book publishing and the way publishers treat contributors to edited books: wait, wait, wait, wait, then hurry up. At any rate, <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Studying-Congregational-Music-Key-Issues-Methods-and-Theoretical-Perspectives/Mall-Engelhardt-Ingalls/p/book/9781138588875">the book</a> (<i>Studying Congregational Music: Key Issues, Methods, and Theoretical Perspectives</i>) was published in February, 2021. It has not yet been reviewed in any scholarly journals, to my knowledge. <br /> 3. “A Sound Economy.” This essay was an expansion of one of the four topics of my “sound ecology” project. It was written in 2017 as a chapter for <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/transforming-ethnomusicology-volume-ii-9780197517550?cc=us&lang=en&">a book</a> entitled <i>Transforming Ethnomusicology</i>, edited by Beverley Diamond and Salwa El-Shawan Castelo-Branco. The book contains essays based on many of the presentations from the 2015 “Transforming Ethnomusicology” <a href="https://www.ethnomusicology.org/page/SpecialProjects_ICTM">conference </a>in Limerick, Ireland, including mine. Oxford University Press published this book at last in two volumes, in March of 2021. It has not yet been reviewed in any scholarly journals, to my knowledge. If ethnomusicology was being transformed in 2015 to a more politically engaged scholarship, signaled by this conference, it was even more radically transformed and re-oriented in 2019-2020 by a series of anti-colonialist, anti-racist upheavals in the membership of the Society for Ethnomusicology. <br /> 4. “An Ecological Approach to Folklife Studies, Expressive Culture, and Environment.” This article was <a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=85zfn3yf9780252044038">published</a> in September, 2021 by the University of Illinois Press in <i>Performing Environmentalisms: Expressive Culture and Ecological Change</i>, edited by John McDowell, Katherine Borland, Rebecca Dirksen, and Sue Touhy. <br /> 5. “Earth Song: Music and the Environment.” This short essay, written for an Alexander Street Press curriculum accompanying albums featuring music and environment, was completed in 2019 and remains in production at the Press, as far as I know. <br /> 6. A “response” chapter based on my presentation for an online conference at Dartmouth College, entitled “The Power of Song: The Cultural Politics of Singers Around the Globe,” which took place in December, 2020. This was changed by the book’s editor to an introductory essay for a section of the book on musical icons. I finished up the chapter last spring and revised it a little in response to the book editor’s suggestions. As far as I know, the book manuscript is now with the publisher. <br /> 7. “Eco-trope or Eco-tripe? Music Ecology Today.” I completed this chapter earlier this year. It’s for the book edited by Aaron Allen and myself, <i>Sounds, Ecologies, Musics</i>, under contract with Oxford University Press. We have all the revised chapters from our contributors and, after receiving various other things from them such as cleared permissions, illustrations, contracts, and so forth, we are about to send the entire manuscript to Oxford University Press for their external review process.</span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /> All of those writings were either in progress or completed and waiting for publication at the end of October, 2020. Three were published; the four remaining are completed and awaiting publication. Since October 2020 I’ve also taken on some new projects, some lecturing, and some writing:<br /> 8. “Public Folklore, Heritage, and Environmental Sustainability” was a lecture that I gave for the American Folklore Society on March 10, 2021 at the invitation of the Society Fellows. It was part of a webinar with a follow-up “salon” that I led, with the welcome assistance of Rory Turner and Mary Hufford. About six weeks ago the Society Fellows asked me to turn it into an article for a special issue of the <i>Journal of American Folklore</i>, and I agreed. In my lecture I spoke about experiential knowledge mediated by cultural tradition, and how this can become folklife, or cultural heritage. I went on to discuss the difficulty of accounting for the kind of cultural heritage that rests in local, experiential knowledge about the environment, in the various policy documents that guide international planning for wise and sustainable uses of environmental resources, such as the 2005 <i>UN Millennium Assessment Report on Ecosystems and Human Well-being</i> and its more recent manifestation in the 2018 <i>UN Regional Assessment for the Americas</i> report from the Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, or IPBES for short. I asked what are the consequences of thinking of folklife and the environment as natural capital, providing ecosystem services that include cultural heritage, whose financial worth must be measured? Should public folklorists and other heritage practitioners endorse and work within this predominant contemporary policy paradigm, one that considers the environment to consist primarily of economic assets, with measurable market values that enter into cost-benefit analyses during resource allocation planning and decision-making? Or, to reprise an old theme in this blog, do we have built into the assumptions and mechanisms of these assessments a confusion of economic value with cultural values?<br /> 9. “The Place of Music in the Social World: Whose Music? Whose Social World?” This was a public lecture I was invited to give on September 29 to a group of ethnomusicologists in Europe, for a lecture series on ethnomusicology that was based in Geneva, Switzerland. Although I would have loved to travel to Geneva on their invitation, the August return of COVID-19 in the form of the delta variant made this impossible and so I delivered the lecture virtually. I spoke about my sound ecology project and my proposal to consider the place of sound in the social world of all living beings. <br /> 10. “Adaptations: Confronting Climate Change Amidst COVID-19.” The City University of New York held a <a href="https://brookcenter.gc.cuny.edu/2021/08/27/responses-in-music-to-climate-change/">week-long conference</a> early in October 2021, on “Responses to Music in Climate Change.” I was asked to give a brief presentation on a roundtable with other scholars in ecomusicology: Aaron Allen, Denise Von Glahn, and Holly Watkins among them. I spoke for about ten minutes about the effects of COVID-19 and the perceptions of climate change among two marginalized religious groups that I’ve visited in and written about for many decades, the independent Baptist congregation in Virginia’s northern Blue Ridge, and the Old Regular Baptists of southeastern Kentucky. I was the only panelist whose presentation was based on ethnographic fieldwork, and yet most of it was fieldwork conducted by telephone on account of COVID-19 and the inadvisability of travel. I already knew about the Blue Ridge group’s ideas concerning climate change, because when I last visited them, in 2016, the subject arose and we discussed it. In essence this group of evangelical fundamentalists agrees that the climate emergency is real and that human beings are the cause of global warming, but they don’t believe that God will let His people or the Earth perish. I wrote about this in the Afterword to the 2nd edition of <a href="https://utpress.org/title/powerhouse-for-god/"><i>Powerhouse for God</i></a>, published in 2018. But to prepare for the presentation I had to find out about how COVID-19 was affecting both groups, and how the Old Regular Baptists I knew were responding to climate change, via phone calls. Being there in person would have been much better, but even so I felt that because I’d known the people I spoke with for many years, that telephone fieldwork in this case was an acceptable option. Still, I wished for in-person visits and look forward to seeing them again when it becomes possible. <br /> 11. A panel discussion in Music4ClimateJustice stream to accompany the COP-26 conference on the climate emergency, in Glasgow, Scotland, early in November, 2021. Warren Senders asked me and two other ecomusicologists, Jennifer Post and Mike Silvers, to talk about our work in ecomusicology and climate change for about an hour as part of an AV stream broadcast to the delegates at COP-26. I chose to talk about sonication, or bumblebee pollination of flowers in the nightshade family, such as those of tomatoes, and blueberries; and the damage that global warming is doing to bumblebees. For those who don’t know, these flowers hold their pollen inside their closed-up anthers, making it inaccessible except to pollinators like bumblebees who can pry them apart. In this case the bumblebee vibrates its wings and body, making its characteristic buzzing sound; and this buzz pollination vibration opens up the anther when the bee lies atop it, whereupon the bee is able to bathe itself in the pollen. <br /> 12. “The Sound Commons and Applied Ecomusicologies.” This is an article co-authored by Aaron Allen, Taylor Leapaldt, Mark Pedelty, and myself, for a book in musicology edited by Chris Dromey and to be published by Routledge. This article has already been in progress for a few years. In it, I start off by explaining my <a href="https://folkways.si.edu/magazine-fall-winter-2012-sound-commons-living-creatures/science-and-nature-world/music/article/smithsonian">idea of the sound commons</a> and its application to applied ecomusicology, at least in theory; then Mark and Taylor discuss one case-study application of the sound commons, and Aaron Allen discusses another. Aaron has been spearheading this joint effort; I’ve just been doing my part when asked. I completed my section of the article in 2019, and the others followed; we revised in 2020 and sent the manuscript to Chris, who returned it with suggested revisions last spring. We responded to those and revised yet again, and the last I heard, Aaron was collating the changes as of last July with the intent of returning the article to Chris once more. <br /> 13. “Ecojustice and Ontological Turns: a Response to Marshall and DeAngeli.” This was part of an E-seminar that the <i>Ecomusicology Review</i> has been conducting in the fall of 2021 within the ecomusicology Google Group. Kimberly Marshall and Emma DeAngeli wrote an essay to which Sebastian Hochmeyer responded, whereupon they wrote a rejoinder. Mark Pedelty followed with a second response. Aaron Allen asked me if I too would respond, and so I wrote a brief response, starting with my reaction to a disagreement between Marshall and DeAngeli on one hand, and Hachmeyer on the other, over the relevance of the so-called ontological turn in anthropology to the project of social justice. Rather than take sides, I proposed that ecojustice would resolve the disagreement by including social justice in the larger framework of relationality and by extending reciprocity and respect to all living beings, not just humans. This is congruent with the writings of Indigenous scholars such as Robin Kimmerer and Zoe Todd in past dozen years or so as well even though they don’t use that term. Aaron intends for all these to be published in the <i>Ecomusicology Review</i>, though I’m not sure when. I expect that Marshall and DeAngeli will reply to Mark and to me before it all sees the light of publication. <br /></span></span></p>Jeff Todd Titonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10384565652765905576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4200147945040702557.post-21094395927542685212021-11-28T17:41:00.000-05:002021-11-28T17:41:36.399-05:00Doing DERT at the American Folklore Society Conference<p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1sLnBkhUvZU/YaQD62jKlqI/AAAAAAAABck/8ZYArhHLAp41qv6ZzHgXLALY2u_lFjYTgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/83%2BView%2Bfrom%2BTanners%2BRidge%2B1979.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1399" data-original-width="2048" height="438" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1sLnBkhUvZU/YaQD62jKlqI/AAAAAAAABck/8ZYArhHLAp41qv6ZzHgXLALY2u_lFjYTgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h438/83%2BView%2Bfrom%2BTanners%2BRidge%2B1979.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Apple orchard atop Tanner's Ridge, Page Co., VA. Photo by Jeff Todd Titon, 1979.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /> <span style="font-size: medium;">Despite COVID-19 academic conferences haven’t let up. Instead, they’ve either gone entirely online or become hybrid, partially online and partially in-person. The American Folklore Society annual conference was hybrid, spanning the week of Oct. 18-25, in person in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and online from wherever the participants happened to be at the time. I was in Maine, part of a roundtable forum with others who were in Indiana, Maryland, and Ohio. John McDowell, folklorist from Indiana University’s Folklore Institute, put it together to showcase publication of a recent book, <i>Performing Environmentalisms: Expressive Culture and Ecological Change</i>, published earlier this year by Indiana University Press. The book grew out of a conference at Indiana University in the spring of 2017, sponsored by Indiana’s DERT group, the Diverse Environmentalist Research Team, based in the university’s folklore and ethnomusicology department. Although invited, I was unable to participate in the conference because I was scheduled for arthroscopic knee surgery at the same time. Later I was invited to contribute an essay to the book anyway, and to that end I decided to revisit a colloquium talk that I presented to the folklore department at the University of Pennsylvania, in 1984, which I entitled “Toward an Ecological Paradigm for Folklife Studies,” and again in a condensed version before the American Folklore Society, in 1986. I never tried to publish it; rather, I relied on some of it for a chapter of my book, <a href="https://utpress.org/title/powerhouse-for-god/"><i>Powerhouse for God</i></a> (2018 [1988]), which focused on the folklife of mountain farming in the northern Blue Ridge Mountains from 1850 until the coming of the Shenandoah National Park to the area. The families living on what would become Park land were displaced—that is, kicked out—by the federal government which exercised eminent domain and attempted to resettle the families elsewhere, an experiment that, like others in Appalachia, failed. Nonetheless, the story of the families who lived there, I found, by looking at the household-by-household agricultural census, as well as courthouse records, wills, probate inventories, genealogies, trial transcripts, and local histories, was different from the prevailing narrative of these Appalachian mountaineers as a backward and impoverished population in a “land that time forgot.” In fact, the evidence revealed that these farming families were succeeding in the nineteenth century until around 1900 when a series of disturbances to their mountain agricultural ecosystem reduced them to the poverty in which they were found by government agents and journalists in the 1920s as plans for the Park were developing. Those disturbances included a blight that killed the chestnut trees, robbing the mountain families’ pigs of an important, and cost-free, food source, namely chestnut mast. Overpopulation was another problem, along with the coming of the railroad which enabled corporations from outside the region to buy timber rights and undertake large-scale timber harvesting. This left the land far more vulnerable to flooding and made farming far more difficult. In contemporary ecological terminology we would say that the ecosystem regime had achieved a degree of stability in the second half of the nineteenth century but that this series of disturbances took it to a tipping point in which the regime changed to a different and far less desirable ecosystem, one in which it was no longer possible for mountain families to make a living from farming in this area. <br /> For the colloquium, the AFS paper, and the book, I was content to leave the story there, trying to underline the point that the Appalachian hillbilly stereotype was contradicted by the evidence; and that rather than settling into poverty this population was reduced to it. But for the DERT essay, after encouragement from John McDowell, I decided to add a section in which I presented and interpreted several performed narratives, spoken by the last generation of mountain farmers, about what it was like to try to make a living after the regime change. And in the DERT presentation for the AFS forum last October, I revisited my ecological approach to folklife in light of these additional narratives, and then related it to what we now think of as traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), in this case the knowledge that enabled the mountain farming ecosystem to flourish and provide a living for families who lived there in the nineteenth century. But this ecosystem was unsustainable in the face of the pressures of modernization and development, and vulnerable to environmental disasters such as the chestnut blight.<br /> I also spoke, at the end of this presentation, about an issue that has concerned me now for many years; namely, the roles of TEK and IEK (Indigenous ecological knowledges) in the discourses surrounding environmental as well as musical and cultural sustainability. But I will leave that for a later blog entry.</span></p>Jeff Todd Titonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10384565652765905576noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4200147945040702557.post-7988377015731587582021-10-26T18:59:00.003-04:002021-11-28T17:44:18.933-05:00Adaptations in Sound and Music: Confronting Climate Change Amid Covid-19<p><span style="font-size: medium;"> This has been a pretty busy month. On October 6 I participated on a roundtable at a virtual conference at the City University of New York. The four-day conference brought together musicologists, ethnomusicologists, composers, performers, and some of us who also identify, as I do, as ecomusicologists. <a href="https://brookcenter.gc.cuny.edu/2021/09/07/responses-in-music-to-climate-change-conference-schedule/">The conference subject was "Responses in Music to Climate Change</a>," and our roundtable forum topic was "Adaptations: Confronting Climate Change Amid Covid-19." Presenting on the panel were Aaron Allen (University of North Carolina, Greensboro), Mark Pedelty (University of Minnesota), Alexander Rehding (Harvard University), Denise Von Glahn (Florida State University), Holly Watkins (University of Rochester), and myself (Brown University). My presentation was untitled, and was an extremely brief excerpt from a portion of a 7,000-word article forthcoming in a book edited by Jonathan Stock and Beverley Diamond, for Routledge, to be titled <i>The Routledge Companion to Ethics and Research in Ethnomusicology</i>. Most of the articles are completed, including mine; but the editors are waiting for a few that remain, whereupon they will all be forwarded to Routledge. I doubt that the volume will appear before 2023. At any rate, here is what I said on the panel, in response to the topic at hand:</span></p><p>
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "American Typewriter",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <span style="font-size: small;">"As I understood it we’re supposed to speak of the effects of
COVID-19 and climate change on music, and although I could speak about its
devastating effects on my own old-time musical community, where under
non-pandemic conditions we play fiddles and banjos sitting knee to knee and
feeling each other's presence, instead I plan to do the traditional
ethnomusicological thing and speak about some of its effects in two
marginalized religious communities that I’ve visited in and written about for
many decades. Their perspectives on climate change are somewhat different from mine,
and perhaps they also differ from yours.<span> </span></span></span></p><span style="font-size: small;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "American Typewriter",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "American Typewriter",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Old
Regular Baptists in the coal country of the southern Appalachian mountains are
a demonstrative, intimate group of about 10,000 people descended from the
Calvinist wing of the Reformation. Their gatherings are best experienced in
person. They sing lined-out hymnody in heterophonic unison, often with lyrics
from the 18th century and melodies of indeterminate age. They intone their
prayers and they sing their sermons. In the last century we collaborated on a
music sustainability project. They say that the sound of their singing,
praying, and preaching opens a mutually communicative channel of experience
among them, and between them and the presence of God. I spoke with Elwood
Cornett, their Association head, about the effects of COVID-19 and climate
change on their music. Regarding COVID, t</span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">here is no
opposition on religious grounds to masking and social distancing, but there is longstanding
mistrust of government and drug companies, so vaccine hesitancy is significant.
</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "American Typewriter",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Some are
still going to church meetings while overall attendance is down. All are masked
and they're doing the best they can, to refrain from the frequent handshaking
and hugging that has characterized their meetings for centuries. Some tried
church via Zoom but it failed for lack of presence as well as poor rural
internet service. As for climate change, they agree that it’s anthropogenic but
point out that they’ve been experiencing environmental violence and ecosystem
devastation in the mountains for decades. Mountaintop removals and more
frequent flooding are only the latest examples. </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></span></p><span style="font-size: small;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 6.0in; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "American Typewriter",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Things are different for
the group of evangelical fundamentalists in Virginia's northern Blue Ridge who
were the focus of my ethnography, <i>Powerhouse for God.</i> As a result of COVID they closed church
for a couple of months in 2020. They knew Zoom church would be a failure so
they did not attempt it. They got the idea to try to hold it outside in the
church parking lot as if it were a drive-in movie. The pastor told me he felt
like he was preaching mainly to Silverados and F-150s, and he didn’t much like
it. None of them did. So after a few more weeks they all went back into church,
some wearing masks and some not. Like the Old Regulars, they experience the
sound of their singing, praying and preaching as a demonstration of the power
of the Holy Spirit that opens a communication channel among them and between
them and the divine presence. Climate change is much on their minds. They
believe it is real, and that human beings have caused it; but they don't
believe that it will cause the Earth's destruction. The pastor quoted Genesis
8:22 to me: "As long as the Earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and
heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease." But they do see
climate change as another sign of the end times, the Second Coming, and the
rapture of the Church when, as they say, there'll be much so much shouting and
singing in Heaven as to deafen a mere mortal."</span></span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Jeff Todd Titonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10384565652765905576noreply@blogger.com0