The Sound Studies Reader

by Jonathan Sterne (Editor)

The Sound Studies Reader blends recent work that self-consciously describes itself as ‘sound studies’ along with earlier and lesser-known scholarship on sound from across the humanities and social sciences. The Sound Studies Reader touches on key themes like noise and silence; architecture, acoustics and space; media and reproducibility; listening, voices and disability; culture, community, power and difference; and shifts in the form and meaning of sound across cultures, contexts and centuries. Writers reflect on crucial historical moments, difficult definitions, and competing accounts of the role of sound in culture and everyday life. Across the essays, readers will gain a sense of the range and history of key debates and discussions in sound studies. The collection begins with an introduction to welcome novice readers to the field and acquaint them the main issues in sound studies. Individual section introductions give readers further background on the essays and an extensive up to date bibliography for further reading in sound studies make this an original and accessible guide to the field. Rick Altman, Jacques Attali, Roland Barthes, Jody Berland, Karin Bijsterveld, Barry Blesser, Georgina Born, Michael Bull, Adriana Cavarero, Michel Chion, Kate Crawford, Richard Cullen Rath, Jacques Derrida, Mladen Dolar, John Durham Peters, Kodwo Eshun, Frantz Fanon, Lisa Gitelman, Gerard Goggin, Steve Goodman, Stefan Helmreich, Michelle Hilmes, Charles Hirschkind, Shuhei Hosokawa, Don Ihde, Douglas Kahn, Friedrich Kittler, Brandon LaBelle, James Lastra, Richard Leppert, Michèle Martin, Louise Meintjes, Mara Mills, John Mowitt, R. Murray Schafer, Ana María Ochoa Gautier, John Picker, Benjamin Piekut, Trevor Pinch, Tara Rodgers, Linda-Ruth Salter, Jacob Smith, Jason Stanyek, Jonathan Sterne, Emily Thompson, Frank Trocco, Michael Veal, Alexander Weheliye

Genres: Music, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Theory, Essays

576 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Jonathan Sterne is James McGill Professor, Department of Art History and Communication Studies at McGill University, and author of MP3: The Meaning of a Format and The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction, both also published by Duke University Press, and is editor of The Sound Studies Reader. He also makes music and other audio works.

Reviews

[Nate Meshau · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fuckin Atalli, man

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

In the introduction, Sterne tries to point out what is at stake in sound scholarship, writing, "Sound students produce and transform knowledge about sound and in the process reflexively attend to the (cultural, political, environment, aesthetic ...) stakes of that knowledge production" (3-4). In addition to this, there is an effort to disrupt "the privileging of the eye" in cultural studies that bodes well in theory but arguably fails to consolidate the concerns that each individual essay or excerpt proposes as a result of its disparate and piecemeal collectivity (7). Nearly all of the essays and excerpts in this collection offer poignant considerations of sound phenomena, yet the entirety of this book can be a terrible bore to read from cover to cover. Elevated language and specialized approaches don't help. I recommend that those who choose to read this do so slowly, over the course of a few months or so.

[Noah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I still love you Jonathan Sterne