Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology

Sound is at the heart of organized sports and structured play, where participants engage in listening, chanting, noise-making, music-making, and silence. These sonic practices form an auditory ecology that is intimately tied to immersion, flow, and success in the activity. This graduate seminar examines how sound and music articulate the embodied, affective, cultural, and political dimensions of sports and games. Engaging with foundational texts from anthropology and the sociology of sports, alongside contemporary scholarship in ethnomusicology, folklore, media studies, and the interdisciplinary field of sport studies, we will explore how auditory practices shape experiences of play, competition, and fandom. Case studies will range from the sonic intensities of motorsports and football chants to the immersive audio of open-world video games, as well as historical and contemporary debates on nationalism, decoloniality, and the mass mediation of sports soundscapes.