With the “Hear, Here” series, we aim to facilitate conversations around new research in the humanities. Faculty fellows at the Institute for the Humanities will discuss a part of their current project in a short talk followed by a Q & A session.

About this talk:
Since the earliest implementation of noise-control regulations in 1920s New York City, the governance of noise has exposed the gulf between the meaning of noise and the materiality of sound. An examination of Taiwan's regulation of low-frequency noise—sounds that are perceptible to the ear but undetectable by decibel meters—suggests that noise remains a contested object of governance through its classification within bureaucratic systems and the handling capacity of infrastructure. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Taiwan's Environmental Protection Administration and legislative records around the time of the 1980s postauthoritarian transition, I analyze the dialogic encounters between hearing technologies, an apprehensive state apparatus, and embodied citizen hearers that amplify the lossy character of postauthoritarian governance.

Jennifer Hsieh is a 2024-25 Hunting Family Faculty Fellow at the Institute for the Humanities and Assistant Professor of Anthropology.