For this blog post, I would like you to write a paragraph of no more than 250-300 words that describes your argument and focus for Paper #2. The first sentence of this paragraph should indicate what you are working on, and the second sentence should be your working thesis statement. (Look back to the Sheridan Baker Thesis Machine.) The following sentences should detail how you will analyze examples to make your argument.

This document is meant to help move your work on paper #2 along, and you should not think of this proposal as something that you are bound to. I will give you feedback and you may find that your thinking about your paper will change, perhaps substantially. My comments will focus on the quality of your arguments and be geared toward helping you write the paper as it seems to me in the proposal. While your paper might change, however, at this stage it would be a good idea to choose texts that you know you will write about.

• At the beginning of this episode, Krukowski asserts, “the marginal-the rejected-the repressed-is whatever the powerful have decided is of no use at the moment.” What does he mean by this statement? He goes on to ask, “But might it [the marginal-the rejected-the repressed] not be a key to alternate approaches-to art, to society-to power itself?” (“Marginalized” is an adjective that describes a person, group, or concept that is treated as insignificant or peripheral.)
• What is he trying to get at with this question? How does music indicate the differences between the powerful and the marginalized?
• What distinctions does Krukowski draw between being “surprised” by music and “discovering” music? What are the differences between these experiences and according to Krukowski, why are they important?
• How are the music listening experiences enabled by Forced Exposure different from those that Paul Lamere is working on with platforms like Spotify?

In “Living with Music,” how does Ralph Ellison describe how music affects his living experience in his New York City apartment building?

What does he mean by the first sentence of the piece? (“In those days it was either live with music or die with noise…”)

Can you think of points of comparison between Ellison’s essay and either R. Murray Schafer’s “The Soundscape” or Episode 2 of Damon Krukowski’s Ways of Hearing?

1. What do you take the differences between “hearing” and “listening” to be? Do we make choices about what we listen to? If so, how do we make these choices? What criteria do we use? Do structural features, such as race, gender, or social class, inform how we listen? How so? Are there other structural elements that affect our listening experiences?
2. How do Schafer and Krukowski discuss the relationship between sound and space?

In “Living with Music,” how does Ralph Ellison describe how music affects his living experience in his New York City apartment building?

What does he mean by the first sentence of the piece? (“In those days it was either live with music or die with noise…”)

Can you think of points of comparison between Ellison’s essay and either R. Murray Schafer’s “The Soundscape” or Episode 2 of Damon Krukowski’s Ways of Hearing?