Critical Listening to Latinx Soundscapes at the University of Illinois Chicago

The sonic details of everyday life provide a point of entry for examining and redescribing the cultural and social politics of historically significant moments (Sterne, 2012), as well as our relation to the senses, spaces, community, society, and power (Bull & Back, 2004).Considering the vast soundscapes of Latina/o culture and histories, we may listen in to both "loud" sonic events significant to colonial legaciesborderland corridos, pachuca Caló, Lolita Lebrón's cry, Bad Bunny's Spanish at the Super Bowl-as well as the "soft" sounds of resistance and everyday life: the metal turnstile at the U.S.-Mexico border, the (highly guarded) voices of children at forprofit detention centers, or the silence that replaces boomboxes when Latino barrios are gentrified.Across these soundscapes (Schafer, 1994), both sonic events and the ways in which we are made to tune-in or tune-out may be examined as representations of the ideological systems that negotiate their meaning (Novak & Sakakeeny, 2015;Stoever, 2016).A focus on sound and aurality within Latina/o cultural studies does not constitute an alternative or addition to established cultural studies methods, but is interconnected and complementary by taking into account the auditory dimension across already familiar cultural arenas.Furthermore, sounds studies' emphasis on subjectivity and the examination of listeners' positionality expands students' understanding of plural and distinct Latinidades.