Thoreau's Sonic Territories and the Epistemology of Climate Change

Thoreau listened to nature with a musician’s ear. Ever a nonconformist, he searched for music outdoors instead of in concert halls. For him, music is not limited to the human but is, rather, a medium that human and nonhuman... [ view full abstract ]

Thoreau listened to nature with a musician’s ear. Ever a nonconformist, he searched for music outdoors instead of in concert halls. For him, music is not limited to the human but is, rather, a medium that human and nonhuman share. Expanding on recent Sound Studies scholarship, I argue that his reciprocal sonic experience of the world contributes to his politics and transcendentalist philosophy.

Thoreau conveys the value of listening to nonhuman music through what he calls the “earth song” of crickets: “When we hear that sound of the crickets in the sod, the world is not so much with us...While it has that ambrosial sound, no crime can be committed” (VI:162). In response to William Wordsworth, Thoreau offers listening to the nonhuman as a solution to the corruption of unbounded industrialization. Attuning to nonhuman sonic vibrations provides an active, embodied approach to the climate crisis that Enlightenment-based values do not afford; one that de-centers human causality, considers nonhuman agents, and breaks down the bifurcation of human from nature. Specifically, Thoreau’s habits of listening offer what I am calling a “vibrational epistemology” that situates the human within a circulating, materially relational, vibrating world. I draw from Thoreau's naturalist writings to discuss human and nonhuman sonic territories in his time and ours, reconceptualizing environment(s) through sound and harmony (meant literally, not metaphorically). Rather than relying on visual boundaries, attending to the sounds of climate change reveals the power dynamics of the sonic assemblages in which humans and nonhumans live.