DRCLAS Arts & Humanities Workshop: Alejandro Madrid's Aural City

You're all invited to a new meeting of the Arts & Humanities Workshop at DRCLAS. December 2nd, at 5:30pm (CGIS S-216, 1730 Cambridge St.), we'll welcome our own Prof. Alejandro Madrid, the Walter W. Naumburg Professor of Music at Harvard University. 

Date: December 2nd, 5:30 to 7:30pm.
Location: S216, CGIS South

As you know, at the A&H Workshop, we invite distinguished colleagues to present their work in progress or their recently published academic articles, books, and creative work. As you know, instead of having them read a 45-minute long paper followed by a Q&A, we ask them to circulate their essays/chapters; we read them ahead of our workshop and discuss them with the authors over empanadas and refreshments after they introduce and contextualize their projects. 

This time we have the pleasure of discussing Prof. Madrid’s latest book, The Archive and the Aural City. Sound, Knowledge, and the Politics of Listening (Duke University Press, 2025). In this groundbreaking book, Madrid explores how archives can reveal the unheard sounds that shape urban life, particularly in Latin America. Building on Ángel Rama's concept of the "Lettered City," Madridintroduces the idea of the "Aural City," highlighting how sound and listening are central to the production and circulation of knowledge among urban intellectual elites. The book challenges traditional, nationalistic uses of archives, showing how sound can be used to question dominant cultural frameworks and foster more inclusive spaces for knowledge exchange and political action. Through examples ranging from Latin American national archives to digital sound projects, Madrid broadens our understanding of the social and sonic power of archives in the making of urban spaces. Don’t miss this chance to engage with cutting-edge scholarship on sound, archives, and the city.

For this session, we will read:

1. Performative Listening, Writing, Reading, and the Assemblage of Archival Constellations  

5. Mexican Rarities, Disco pirata, and the Promise of a Sound Archive of Postnational Memory

Epilogue. The Relevance of Archives in Times of Post-Truth: An Essay Against Nihilism in the Neoliberal Age 

Please find the PDFs at the bottom of this page.

Join us for an open-ended and dynamic discussion!

Looking forward to seeing you on Tuesday,

 Alejandra y Mariano (en espíritu desde su merecedísimo sabático)