{"id":7955,"date":"2025-05-29T15:25:38","date_gmt":"2025-05-29T13:25:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sgeaj.ch\/?p=7955"},"modified":"2025-05-29T15:25:40","modified_gmt":"2025-05-29T13:25:40","slug":"listening-to-disruption-changing-acoustemologies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sgeaj.ch\/fr\/actualite\/listening-to-disruption-changing-acoustemologies\/","title":{"rendered":"Listening to Disruption: Changing Acoustemologies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Announcement of the conference \u00ab\u00a0Listening to Disruption: Changing Acoustemologies in the Swiss Confederacy, c.1750\u20131815\u00a0\u00bb, taking place at the University of Geneva (Switzerland) from 23 to 24 June 2025.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In his Dictionnaire de Musique<\/em> (Paris 1767), Jean-Jacques Rousseau \u2013 \u00ab\u00a0Citoyen de Gen\u00e8ve\u00a0\u00bb \u2013 included a table of music examples from around the globe that also featured the Swiss herding song Air Suisse appell\u00e9 le Rans des Vaches<\/em>. When heard by Swiss mercenaries abroad, Rousseau declared, the song would overwhelm them emotionally and render them incapable of fighting, while others would remain untouched by the melody. It was not the music itself that caused this effect, said Rousseau, but rather its function as a \u00ab\u00a0signe m\u00e9moratif\u00a0\u00bb, a \u00ab\u00a0sign of remembrance\u00a0\u00bb for the Swiss mercenaries, who heard their former lives encapsulated in the melody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rousseau describes in his Dictionnaire<\/em> what in today\u2019s terms might be called an acoustemological experience. Originally developed by the ethnomusicologist Stephen Feld in 1992, acoustemology<\/em> describes \u00ab\u00a0sonic experience as a way of knowing\u00a0\u00bb (Rice 2018). In subsequent decades, Feld’s term has proven to be a foundational concept for the emergent fields of acoustic history or historical sound studies. For an overview, see James Mansell, Historical Acoustemology: Past, Present and Future<\/em>, 2021, and Emily Wilbourne and Suzanne Cusick, Acoustemologies in Contact. Sounding Subjects and Modes of Listening in Early Modernity<\/em>, 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the Ranz des vaches<\/em> became one of Switzerland’s emblematic sonic embodiments, the tune did not reflect the profound political and economic upheavals that transformed the Swiss Confederacy between 1750 and 1815. What remained constant, however, was the act of listening as a form of knowing and understanding: a crucial element in the slow process of Swiss self-definition during this period of change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aside from imaginations of alpine idylls, the sonic experience of the Swiss Confederacy in the eighteenth century also encompassed the rhythms of the developing industries in the still largely rural country, which disrupted historical patterns of subsistence. The networks of global trade supported an elite that had the means and leisure to participate in urban concert life as it expanded, which in turn established distinct modes of knowing through sound, music, and music theater performance, that were not only new but took on distinctly Swiss forms. However, these emerging acoustemologies excluded large segments of the population, particularly women and non-citizens of lower socioeconomic status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The revolutions of the late eighteenth century, the proclamation and collapse of the Helvetic Republic, and the transformations leading up to the Congress of Vienna in 1815 altered dominant acoustemologies. Sound, song, and music became saturated with meanings that sought to reconfigure political power and align it with evolving concepts such as human rights and republicanism. In the fractured environment of the Confederacy and its allies, where languages, cultures, political systems, and confessions collided, actors had to adapt their sonic understanding to often disruptive circumstances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For further information on the conference, please consult the conference website<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n