Lecture (co-sponsored) | David Haskell | Can “Wild” Sounds Teach Us What it Means to be Human?

Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture

"Can 'Wild' Sounds Teach Us What it Means to be Human?"
David Haskell | Biology & Environmental Sciences | University of the South, Sewanee, TN

Presented by hosts Laura Emmery (Department of Music / Emory University) and Cynthia Willett (Department of Philosophy / Emory University) Co-sponsored by the Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture, and The Department of Psychology.

"I will use examples from the history of sound on Earth to argue that the world’s sonic diversity – both human and nonhuman – undermines ideas of human exceptionalism. Turning our ears toward these sounds also provides a useful foundation for ethical discernment. Listening to insects, birds, and trees, then, is a radical (from the root, radix) act because it places us in relationship with other species and with processes that transcend human concerns. We hear these connections in human sound, too, especially in instrumental music which, from the start, has been an ecologically immersive art."