The study of listening—aurality—and its relation to writing is the subject of this eclectic edited volume. Theorizing Sound Writing explores the relationship between sound, theory, language, and inscription. This volume contains an impressive lineup of scholars from anthropology, ethnomusicology, musicology, performance, and sound studies. The contributors write about sound in their ongoing work, while also making an intervention into the ethics of academic knowledge, one in which listening is the first step not only in translating sound into words but also in compassionate scholarship.

Based on the author's dissertation (doctoral)--Columbia University, 2013.

The Bloomsbury Handbook of the Anthropology of Sound presents the key subjects and approaches of anthropological research into sound cultures. What are the common characteristics as well as the inconsistencies of living with and around sound in everyday life? This question drives research in this interdisciplinary area of sound studies: it propels each main chapter of this handbook into a thoroughly different world of listening, experiencing, receiving, sensing, dreaming, naming, desiring, and crafting sound. This handbook is composed of six sections: sonic artifacts; sounds and the body; habitat and sound; sonic desires; sounds and machines; and overarching sensologies. The individual chapters explore exemplary research objects and put them in the context of methodological approaches, historical predecessors, research practices, and contemporary research gaps. This volume offers therefore one of the broadest, most detailed, and instructive overviews on current research in this area of sensory anthropology.

First Published in 1992. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Winner of IASPM Book Prize, given by IASPM, 2023 This book is an ethnographic study of sound archives and the processes of creative decolonization that form alternative modes of archiving and curating in the 21st century. It explores the histories and afterlives of sound collections and practices at the International Library of African Music. Sound Fragments follows what happens when a colonial sound archive is repurposed and reimagined by local artists in post-apartheid South Africa. The narrative speaks to larger issues in sound studies, curatorial practices, and the reciprocity and ethics of listening to and reclaiming culture. Sound Fragments interrogates how Xhosa arts activism contributes to an expanding notion of what a sound or cultural archive could be, and where it may resonate now and in future.

Theory for Ethnomusicology: Histories, Conversations, Insights, Second Edition, is a foundational work for courses in ethnomusicological theory. The book examines key intellectual movements and topic areas in social and cultural theory, and explores the way they have been taken up in ethnomusicological research. New co-author Harris M. Berger and Ruth M. Stone investigate the discipline’s past, present, and future, reflecting on contemporary concerns while cataloging significant developments since the publication of the first edition in 2008. A dozen contributors approach a broad range of theoretical topics alive in ethnomusicology. Each chapter examines ethnographic and historical works from within ethnomusicology, showcasing the unique contributions scholars in the field have made to wider, transdisciplinary dialogs, while illuminating the field’s relevance and pointing the way toward new horizons of research. New to this edition: Every chapter in the book is completely new, with richer and more comprehensive discussions. New chapters have been added on gender and sexuality, sound and voice studies, performance and critical improvisation studies, and theories of participation. New text boxes and notes make connections among the chapters, emphasizing points of contact and conflict among intellectual movements.