How to Study Sound?

The History, Present Practices, and Future Potential of Sound Studies

Twenty years after sound studies began, this conference looks back and looks to the future.

In the early 2000s, groundbreaking articles, edited volumes, and monographs in sound studies were published: by Jonathan Sterne (The Audible Past, 2003), Michael Bull and Les Back (Auditory Culture Reader, 2003) and Karin Bijsterveld and Trevor Pinch (Sound Studies: New Technologies and Music, 2004), taking up a strand of research that had been developing since the late 1970s, e.g. by Don Ihde (Listening and Voice, 1976), Jacques Attali (Bruits, 1979) or Alain Corbin (Les Cloches de la Terre, 1994). Since then, Sound Studies has seen a proliferation of research networks and projects, MA programmes and postgraduate workshops spring up throughout Western Europe, North America, and more recently, South America, Eastern Europe, Asia, Australia, and various African and Middle Eastern countries. For this rapidly growing scholarly community, it is time to take a moment to review past research, reflect on current practices, and envision the next two and more decades.

The conference explores:

1. Reimagining Histories: How can research concepts from the early history of sound studies, beginning in the second half of the 20th century, be revisited to shape research in the 21st century?
2. Editorial Practices: How can editorial practices support scholarly writing in the current academic landscape?
3. Future Sound Studies: How do communities of artists, activists, and scholars working with sound shape the future of sound studies?

All five sections of the conference are open to the public, feature keynote addresses and on-site panel discussions, and involve early-career scholars from the Nordic countries – also via video call – to manifest sound studies as a global field of research.

The conference is organized by three leading scholars in sound studies: Jennifer Lynn Stoever (Binghamton University, USA). Michael Bull (University of Sussex, UK), and Holger Schulze (KU) – all editors-in-chief of the first-ever Encyclopedia of Sound Studies (Bloomsbury Academic, to be published 2028).

With talks and contributions by:

• Michael Bull (University of Sussex, UK)
• Dolores Inés Casillas (UC Santa Barbara, US)
• Sanne Krogh Groth (Lund University, SE)
• Kristin Moriah (Queens University, CAN)
• Holger Schulze (University of Copenhagen)
• Jacek Smolicki (Uppsala University, SE)
• Jennifer Lynn Stoever (Binghamton, US)
• Qiushi Xu (Southern University of Science and Technology, CN)
• Neil Verma (Northwestern University, US)

The Carlsberg Foundation funds the event.