A Companion to Sound Studies in German-Speaking Cultures
As a sub-discipline of cultural studies, sound studies is by now a firmly established field of inquiry, examining how sonic events and auditory experiences unfold in culturally and historically contingent life situations, from natural environments and architectural space to the virtual realities mediated by modern technologies of sound recording and transmission. But what is the future of sound studies? What are some pressing, under-explored, or even marginalized questions concerning the effects of sound? The Companion proposes to address such questions as it specifically explores the significance of sound studies for German-speaking cultures, from the Middle Ages and the classical-romantic period through high-capitalist industrial modernity to the dawn of the posthumanist interface among human subjects, high technology, objects, and animal life. Examining new ways in which sound—from music and human speech to noise, animal voices, and silence—intersects with literature, visual arts, analog/digital media, and other manifestations of cultural production, the Companion plans to draw on disciplines such as philosophy, aesthetics, literary criticism, musicology, media and sound studies, ecocriticism, gender/queer studies, (post-)colonial and critical race studies, theories of atmosphere, affect, and resonance, and posthumanist theory. The collection is addressed to anyone interested in the ways sound phenomena open up new understandings of German-speaking culture. The Companion will be submitted to the prospective publisher, Camden House/Boydell & Brewer, for external peer review.
Proposals of 250-500 words for essay contributions in English are invited from established and emerging scholars. Deadline: January 15, 2021. If selected, completed articles of 5,000-6,000 words will be due 15 months after the acceptance of the proposal. Please send all proposals and inquiries to the editor:
, Ph.D., Distinguished Prof. of German, Emeritus
University of Alabama in Huntsville