Over the 2019 winter intersession, a group of EH students, faculty, and researchers collaborated on a project centered around the vulture population of the Bard Campus. These culturally resonant animals exist at the intersection between distinctive historical narratives and connect us to questions of local ecologies, shifting habitats, and land use. The end product was a collection of multimedia works composed of drone footage, 360 video, writing, and virtual simulations. More information will be available soon.

Taught by Professor Maria Sachiko Cecire

This course offers an introduction to media history and theory, tracking a series of events and concepts with the aim of understanding media not simply as a scholarly object but as a force in our lives. We will look at old and new media alike, from writing to photography to the contemporary digital landscape, and explore how media have regularly re-shaped our perceptions of time, space, knowledge, and identity. The premise of the course is that the new-ness of new media can only be approached against the background of humanistic experimentation and imagination, even as it transforms our lives and experiences.

Taught by Professor Whitney Slaten

How have recent ethnomusicologists and anthropologists written about traditional and popular musics around the world? How does this writing respond to representing culture, locally and globally? How does this writing about musics’ social contexts respond to changing academic attitudes within the humanities and social sciences, as well as the interdisciplinary development of sound studies? Students will read, present, and discuss chapters from recent book length examples of musical ethnography. Lectures and discussions will focus on the writing strategies of ethnographers, continually assessing how writing represents and analyzes local and global practices of production, circulation, and consumption, as well as how such works participate in emergent scholarly traditions. The course will culminate in a written comparative ethnography analysis paper in which students will compare two ethnographic monographs.

The Center for Experimental Humanities at New Annandale House is open to the Bard community to reserve for all kinds of student, faculty, and staff projects: hands-on workshops, digital exhibitions, game nights, lectures, screenings, performances, and more!

Click HERE for more information about booking the space.