‘Sound, Color, Shape…’ symposium promotes collaboration, interdisciplinary events

Students in USD’s music department are getting a chance to experience human perceptions and how they relate to music.

“The Sound, Color, Shape…” symposium is an interdisciplinary event that focuses on human perception and how people see the world and seek to understand it. Various professors across campus will be presenting different ideas on human senses and perceptions.

All the events take place in the Warren M. Lee Center for Fine Arts building.

Paul Lombardi, assistant music professor of theory and composition, organized the symposium and said the event is important for collaborating on ideas from other subjects and departments.

“We don’t offer degrees in my subject, which is theories in composition, so I really like sharing things with my students about it and that’s kind of how this symposium came out,” Lombardi said. “Because (human perception) is such a broad topic, it automatically becomes interdisciplinary.”

The first day of the symposium brought in three speakers presenting lectures on “Mirror Neurons, Kinesthetic Empathy and the Adaption of Early Modern Spanish Drama” by Laura Vidler, chair of the modern languages department; “Color in Soviet Propaganda” by David Burrow, associate professor of history; and “Neuroscience Behind Synesthesia” by Lee Baugh, assistant professor of basic biomedical sciences.

Lombardi said he hopes to make this a biannual event.

“I decided to bring it here to provide an opportunity to my students so they can be exposed to things they normally wouldn’t be exposed to,” he said. “I hope they get a lot out of it.”

The event is sponsored by the Center for Teaching and Learning, the College of Fine Arts, the music department and the honors program.

The symposium will continue Thursday until Friday.