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VERSION:2.0
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X-WR-CALNAME:Ron Alexander Memorial Lectures in Musicology: Gabrielle Corni
 sh\, University of Wisconsin-Madison
X-WR-TIMEZONE:Pacific Time (US & Canada)
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260719T190050Z
UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_50852163950478
DTSTART:20260127T003000Z
DTEND:20260127T020000Z
DESCRIPTION:Title: "Atomic Listening: Cold War Science and the Sonic Imagin
 ation"\n\nAbstract: In this talk\, I use the Chernobyl disaster as a start
 ing point to set sound and music studies into dialogue with the deep histo
 ry of radiation and nuclear arms testing in the twentieth century. Weaving
  together archival documents\, oral history\, and musical examples\, I sho
 w how scientists\, bureaucrats\, artists\, and ordinary citizens alike tur
 ned to sound to measure and better understand the atom’s potential in th
 e Soviet Union and United States. I position radiation as a “hyperobject
 ” (Morton 2013): an object that is so vast and immeasurable that it defi
 es interpretation. As something simultaneously both incomprehensible in sc
 ope and invisible to the human eye\, radiation intersects with audile tech
 niques in ways that help to illuminate changing epistemologies and politic
 al ecologies during the Cold War. Listening to the atom\, I argue\, challe
 nged historical actors to recalibrate their understandings of science\, em
 piricism\, and geopolitics. I start with the thesis that radiation is itse
 lf an agent of sound and\, moving from there\, map a series of moments in 
 nuclear and musical history in which a critical\, affective ear to radiati
 on might tell new stories about the atomic age. I ultimately want to end b
 y asking what listening to the atom might teach us about our tenuous ecolo
 gical present and ever-encroaching nuclear futures.\n\nGabrielle Cornish i
 s assistant professor of musicology at the University of Wisconsin–Madis
 on\, where her research explores the connections between listening culture
 s and political ideology in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. In
  particular\, her current book project\, Socialist Noise: Sound and Soviet
  Identity after Stalin\, traces the intersections between music\, technolo
 gy\, and the politics of socialist modernity under Khrushchev and Brezhnev
 . Her next project\, Sounds for the End of the World: Cold War Epistemolog
 ies and the Sonic Imaginary\, explores the relationship between militarize
 d acoustic technologies\, ecological disaster\, and knowledge production i
 n both the United States and Soviet Union during the Cold War.  Her writin
 g has appeared in the Journal of the American Musicological Society\, the 
 Journal of Musicology\, and the Slavic Review\, and she has bylines in Sla
 te\, the Washington Post\, and The New York Times. She is the recipient of
  numerous fellowships and awards from the American Musicological Society\,
  the Association for Slavic\, East European\, and Eurasian Studies\, and t
 he Fulbright Program. For the 2025-2026 academic year\, she is a fellow of
  the American Council of Learned Societies.\n\nAdmission Information\n\nFr
 ee admission
GEO:37.423758;-122.169296
LOCATION:Braun Music Center\, Room 103
SUMMARY:Ron Alexander Memorial Lectures in Musicology: Gabrielle Cornish\, 
 University of Wisconsin-Madison
URL;VALUE=URI:https://events.stanford.edu/event/alexander-lecture-cornish
CATEGORIES:Lecture/Presentation/Talk
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