Sound Studies and Sonic Methodologies in Russia since the 2010s

Presenter: Maksim Zhiganov

Abstract

Research on the history of sound and music studies in the post-Soviet space is still more commonplace in the “discourse of scarcity” and “litany of lagging” from the world scientific process than in a field of historical and epistemological orientation. Nevertheless, this compact but rapidly developing history shows us unexpected types of connection and continuity with Soviet acoustical and musicological science, which in its different periods, depending on the tasks set externally, directed its efforts unevenly to different aspects of the sonic and musical. In my presentation, I will start from the thesis that the Russian acoustic turn of the last 10-15 years performs several overlapping functions: by distracting the authorities from the ideology of political and social research, it becomes a politics in itself, realizing one of the few opportunities to speak the language of critical theory or to address fundamental issues of current socio-humanitarian theories on the rights of neutrality and legitimacy.