The Sound and the Theory: A Conversation with Anthropology Assistant Professor Jennifer Hsieh

This article is part of an ongoing series spotlighting assistant professors in the anthropology department.

While sight is the primary sense for most of us, Anthropology Assistant Professor Jennifer Hsieh makes a strong case for hearing. Sound has defined much of Hsieh's life and career, from her early childhood in Dallas, where she began playing piano at age 3, to gigs as a singer/songwriter and at an NYC recording studio, to her current work studying and teaching the anthropology of sound. Music's constancy in her life is rivaled only by the constancy of anthropology. 

"I've stayed with anthropology ever since I was a freshman in college," Hsieh said. "I have my bachelor's in anthropology, I have a master's in anthropology and a Ph.D. I've stayed in anthropology because it's been so invigorating for me as a way of thinking about the world and understanding how people connect and communicate with each other. It's always been this anchor for me to learn about the world, but also to make sense of the different sides of who I am as a person."

A classically trained pianist, Hsieh considered a career in music, but when she discovered it was possible to study music and sound in an anthropological context, she changed her mind. 

"This is exactly where I want to be. It's still kind of on the margins of what an anthropologist studies, but it's something I've always gravitated towards," she said.

For Hsieh, piano remains both a creative outlet and an inspiration in shaping her research questions. 

"When I was practicing for piano competitions in high school, my teacher would record me playing the piece and we would listen to it," she said. "When you're playing for a recording, you're playing for somebody besides yourself, and that's stayed with me — what happens when technology enters a human interaction between people. I find piano allows me to think about sound in a more abstract way that I can then apply to my own research."

Later, her recording studio job in Manhattan offered new opportunities to explore the interplay between technology and sound. The work trained Hsieh's ears to notice subtle differences, and she was fascinated by people's subjective judgments of sound quality. What was the "best" sound, anyway, and what did that even mean? 

These days, Hsieh is working on a book about noise control in Taiwan. Her research is focused on Taiwanese civil servants at the EPA, how they communicate with the public regarding noise problems, and how residents communicate with each other. Hsieh's interest in government took root early: her junior year of high school, she worked as a Congressional Page in Washington, D.C., arriving one week before the September 11 attacks. Interestingly (but perhaps not surprisingly), her strongest memories of the U.S. Capitol that day — and the days that followed — are auditory.

"One thing that really stuck out to me was hearing the evacuation alarms," Hsieh recalled. "I didn't hear [them] on 9/11, but there were subsequent false alarms, like [for] a suspicious package. Everyone was always on guard. Those alarms really scared me, because who knew what could have happened? After my time as a page ended, I was back in school in Texas and I would hear the sound of the [fire drill] and rush out the door before anyone else had gotten out of their seats. … What's interesting is that it was the sonic effect that stayed with me. I don't really have an explanation except that, for me, a lot of how I make sense of the world has been through sound, and even with 9/11 that's been the case." 

At U-M, Hsieh founded the Sensory & Technology Lab to foster collaborative research in film, music, and other artistic media. As part of that initiative, in September Hsieh brought anthropologist Steven Feld to campus for a screening of his documentary film Voices of the Rainforest (2019). Feld is widely regarded as the anthropologist who started anthropology of sound. In collaboration with Marquee Arts, Hsieh raised funds through several university units to bring the film to the State Theatre, where it could be shown in 7.1 surround sound as it was intended to be experienced. The "cinema concert" highlights Feld’s research with the Bosavi people of Papua, New Guinea, where the rainforest surroundings impede visual navigation. Feld found that the Bosavi listen for the sounds of birds, water, and insects to know where they are, and navigate using their sonic knowledge of the rainforest. Through the Sensory & Technology Lab, Hsieh hopes to foster more creative work in line with Feld's documentary.

"Anthropologists will say that our primary way of disseminating our research is through academic writing, but it doesn't have to be the only way," Hsieh said. "In this department, we have a lot of faculty who are making documentary films, for example. There is a strong tradition of [expanding] beyond the written word. The lab is designed to build on those kinds of projects and create a space [for that]."

Hsieh's favorite course to teach is "Sound, Music, and Noise," where students record and discuss sounds around campus and play telephone with foam cups and string to explore how sound travels. When asked about her advice for students, Hsieh points to a common question: "How does this relate to my future?"

"Sometimes you don't know the answer to that right away," she said. "Maybe the answer will come a few years after they've graduated or as they move through their careers. I never thought that being a page was going to help me 10 years later with my academic career. Sometimes we don't know why we're drawn to a discipline or a class or a subject, and it only is later that it comes to make sense. College is a great opportunity to get a little lost in [those] subjects."