New Books in Sound Studies
Education & Explainer
About
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sound-studies
Episodes
- The YIVO Sound Archive at 40: A Celebration
This episode celebrates the 40th anniversary of the YIVO Sound Archive, featuring a discussion with its founder, Henry Sapoznik, and current and former archivists. They discuss the archive's history, its vast collection of Jewish music and…
- Mariam Goshadze, "The Noise Silence Makes: Secularity and Ghana's Drum Wars" (Duke UP, 2025)
Mariam Goshadze analyzes noise regulation in Ghana, focusing on the 1990s and 2000s conflicts over drumming bans. She demonstrates how these events reveal Ghanaian secularity and the role of traditional religions in urban African life.
- The World According to Sound: Chris Hoff and Sam Harnett on Audio Art, Wonder, and Humanistic Reasoning
Lee Vinsel and Melanie Kiechle hosted radio producers Chris Hoff and Sam Harnett to discuss their sound production project, The World According to Sound, and their octophonic sound show, Ways of Knowing. The conversation was recorded durin…
- Deirdre Loughridge & Thomas Patteson, "The Museum of Imaginary Musical Instruments" (Reaktion, 2026)
Deirdre Loughridge and Thomas Patteson discuss their book, "The Museum of Imaginary Musical Instruments," which explores fictional musical instruments from ancient myths to futuristic media found in literature, theory, video games, and art.
- Philip Abbott, "Sounds for a New World: The Christianizing Soundscapes of Late Antiquity" (Oxford UP, 2026)
Philip Abbott's "Sounds for a New World" examines how late ancient Christians aimed to Christianize the world's acoustic landscapes. Abbott explores various sonic practices used by Christians across the Latin West and Syriac East to harmon…
- Christina Schwenkel, "Sonic Socialism: Crisis and Care in Pandemic Hanoi" (U California Press, 2025)
In an era dominated by visual information, what can the sounds of a pandemic reveal about crisis and care? How might attuning to sonic atmospheres uncover new dimensions to states of emergency and their implications for collective life? In…
- P. Thirumal and K. A. Nuaiman eds., "Inhabiting Technologies/Modernities: Media and Cultural Practices in South Asia" (Orient BlackSwan, 2025)
Studies of forms of media have focused on either political or cultural histories of media. Political histories study media growth and literacy, and the emergence of liberal democratic institutions in Western and postcolonial societies. Cul…
- Podcast Intellectuals Panel #3 with Joy Connolly, Barry Lam, and Aurora Hutchinson
This is a special edition of the New York Institute for the Humanities’ Vault podcast. On October 10, 2025, NYU’s Journalism Institute hosted a day-long conference titled Podcast Intellectuals: Producing Original Scholarship with Audio . O…
- Podcast Intellectuals Panel #2 with Ellen Horne, Chenjerai Kumanyika, Barry Lam, and Julia Barton
This is a special edition of the New York Institute for the Humanities’ Vault podcast. On October 10, 2025, NYU’s Journalism Institute hosted a day-long conference titled Podcast Intellectuals: Producing Original Scholarship with Audio. Ov…
- Podcast Intellectuals Podcast Panel #1 with Benjamen Walker and Fanny Gribenski
This is a special edition of the New York Institute for the Humanities’ Vault podcast. On October 10, 2025, NYU’s Journalism Institute hosted a day-long conference titled Podcast Intellectuals: Producing Original Scholarship with Audio . O…
- S2. E10. Sharon White Rewires Disco
At the center of 1970s New York's most iconic clubs—from the celebrity-studded Studio 54 to the premiere lesbian discotheque Sahara—stood a queer Black woman on the turntables: Sharon White. With a sound she describes as "edgy, deep, aggre…
- James Brown's War on Disco
In the penultimate episode of season 2 of Soundscapes NYC, hosts Ryan Purcell and Kristie Soares sit down with acclaimed historian Alice Echols, author of Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture. Echols—who holds the Barbra S…
- Eduardo Mercado III, "Why Whales Sing" (JHU Press, 2025)
With breathtaking complexity and haunting beauty, the songs of whales have long fascinated scientists. Whales are the only mammals that can sing continuously for ten hours or more, changing the unique songs they sing every year. In Why Wha…
- Mattin, "Social Dissonance" (MIT Press, 2022)
We are not what we think we are. Our self-image as natural individuated subjects is determined behind our backs: historically by political forces, cognitively by the language we use, and neurologically by sub-personal mechanisms, as reveal…
- Birgit Abels and Patrick Eisenlohr, "Atmospheric Knowledge: Environmentality, Latency, and Sonic Multimodality" (U California Press, 2025)
How do we know through atmospheres? How can being affected by an atmosphere give rise to knowledge? What role does somatic, nonverbal knowledge play in how we belong to places? Atmospheric Knowledge takes up these questions through detaile…
- Anand, "The Notbook of Kabir: Thinner than Water, Fiercer than Fire" (India Viking, 2025)
Kabir is the most alive of all dead poets. He is a fabric without stitches. No centres, no edges. Anand threads his way in. Over the years, as a publisher and editor, Anand immerses himself in the works of Babasaheb Ambedkar and other anti…
- Disco's Revenge
In the wake of Disco Demolition Night in 1979—a cultural bonfire that seemed to signal the end of disco—something unexpected began to rise from Chicago’s underground. This episode traces the story of Frankie Knuckles, the Bronx-born DJ who…
- Disco Sucks
On July 12, 1979, Chicago’s Comiskey Park erupted into chaos during what was supposed to be a quirky baseball promotion. Shock radio jock Steve Dahl’s “Disco Demolition Night” incentivized listeners to bring disco records to a White Socks…
- From Stonewall to Studio 54
In the fifth episode of Season Two of Soundscapes NYC , hosts Ryan Purcell and Kristie Soares sit down with the legendary DJ Nicky Siano. The history of dance music in 1970s New York is synonymous with the life and work of Siano. He was am…
- Michaela Vieser and Isaac Yuen, "The Sound Atlas: A Guide to Strange Sounds Across Landscapes and Imagination" (Reaktion, 2025)
In The Sound Atlas: A Guide to Strange Sounds across Landscapes and Imagination (Reaktion, 2025), nature writers Michaela Vieser and Isaac Yuen set out in search of sounds beautiful and loathsome, melodious and disturbing, healing, strange…
- Disco's "Latin Tinge"
In the 1930s, musical Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton identified the influence of Latin American rhythms like the habanera in jazz, as a sonic “tinge” that fundamentally shaped his style as a stride pianist. In the Seventies, disco presented…
- Kate Herrity, "Sound, Order and Survival in Prison: The Rhythms and Routines of HMP Midtown" (Bristol UP, 2024)
The soundscape of prison life is that of constant clangs, bangs and jangles. What is the significance of this cacophonous din to those who live and work with it? Sound, Order and Survival in Prison: The Rhythms and Routines of HMP Midtown…
- A Spatial History of Disco
In the third episode of Season Two of Soundscapes NYC, hosts Ryan Purcell and Kristie Soares take you on an immersive journey through the hot nights and wild streets of Lower Manhattan during the Seventies. For this episode, Jesse Rifkin,…
- S1.E7. Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ
Bruce Springsteen was keenly aware and excited by the sounds of the CBGBs scene during the Seventies. With his own bands, the Boss performed in the same venues associated with punk rock and ultimately wrote songs for Patti Smith and the Ra…
- Sounds of the City Collapsing
In the fourth episode of Soundscapes NYC, host Ryan Purcell and music historian Jesse Rifkin tour a constellation of seedy bars and venues in the 1970s that nurtured bands during the early days of punk rock. These spaces include well-known…
- Simon Stjernholm, "Sensing Islam: Engaging and Contesting the Senses in Muslim Religiosity" (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2025)
Simon Stjernholm's new book Sensing Islam: Engaging and Contesting the Senses in Muslim Religiosity (Bloomsbury Press, 2025) considers specific case studies of embodiment and oratory productions by Muslims in Denmark, Sweden, and Cyprus. I…
- Colleen Renihan, John Spilker, and Trudi Wright eds., "Sound Pedagogy: Radical Care in Music" (University of Illinois Press, 2024)
Sound Pedagogy: Radical Care in Music (University of Illinois Press, 2024) is a collected edition about Pedagogies of Care edited by Colleen Renihan, John Spilker-Beed, and Trudi Wright are experienced music history educators working in th…
- Pooja Rangan, Akshya Saxena, Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan, Pavitra Sundar eds., "Thinking with an Accent: Toward a New Object, Method, and Practice" (UC Press, 2023)
Everyone speaks with an accent, but what is an accent? Thinking with an Accent: Toward a New Object, Method, and Practice (UC Press, 2023) introduces accent as a powerfully coded yet underexplored mode of perception that includes looking,…
- Noise and Affect Theory
Feminist sound scholar and musician Marie Thompson is a theorist of noise. She has also been one of the key thinkers in integrating the study of sound with the study of affect. Dr. Thompson is Senior Lecturer in Popular Music at the Open U…
- From Hal to Siri: How Computers Learned to Speak
Today we learn how computers learned to talk with Benjamin Lindquist , a postdoctoral researcher at Northwestern University’s Science in Human Culture program. Ben is the author “ The Art of Text to Speech ,” which recently appeared in Cri…
- Noise and Information in the Office
Ever wonder who’s to blame for the noise and distraction of the open office? Our guest has answers. Joseph L. Clarke is a historian of art and architecture and an associate professor at the University of Toronto. His 2021 book Echo’s Chamb…
- Robin Miles: Talking Books
Today we bring you a masterclass in audiobook narration and acting with acclaimed actor, casting director, audiobook narrator and audiobook director, Robin Miles. Miles has narrated over 500 audiobooks, collecting numerous industry awards…
- Radiophilia
Today’s guest is Carolyn Birdsall , Associate Professor of Media Studies, University of Amsterdam. If you’re a scholar of sound or radio, you likely know her work, particularly her monograph Nazi Soundscapes (AUP, 2012) which was the recip…
- Cosmic Visions in Sound
Today we share a podcast episode on the visual epistemology of astronomy by our friends at The World According to Sound . What kind of knowledge do we really gain when we look at images from space? Longtime listeners to this show will reme…
- Your Devotee in Rags
NBN host Hollay Ghadery speaks with cultural icons, Anne Waldman ( The Iovis Trilogy: Colors in the Mechanism of Concealment ) and Andrew Whiteman (Broken Social Scene) who have collaborated to create Your Devotee in Rags —a metamorphic so…
- Tinnitus Stories
Today Mack talks about one of his oldest companions, the tinnitus that lives rent-free in his head. Tinnitus can be annoying, for sure–and for some people it’s much worse than annoying–but it also has a lot to say of interest, if we’re wil…
- Warren Zanes: Rockstar Biographer
Warren Zanes is a “rockstar biographer” in more ways than one: he has experienced life as a rockstar, a biographer, and a biographer of rockstars. When Mack first met Warren in New Orleans sometime in the late 80s or early 90s, Zanes was t…
- Making Radio History
Elena Razlogova is an Associate Professor of History at Concordia University. She is the author of The Listener’s Voice: Early Radio and the American Public (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011) and co-editor of “Radical Histories in Di…
- The Audiobook's Century-Long Overnight Success
Today we present the first episode of a miniseries on audiobooks by getting into the history and theory of the medium. Audiobooks are having a moment—and it only took them over a century to get here. Dr. Matthew Rubery, a Harvard PhD and P…
- Radha Kapuria and Vebhuti Duggal, "Punjab Sounds: In and Beyond the Region" (Routledge, 2024)
Punjab Sounds (Routledge, 2024) nuances our understanding of the region's imbrications with sound. It argues that rather than being territorially bounded, the region only emerges in 'regioning', i.e., in words, gestures, objects, and techn…
- A Philosophy of Echoes
We spend our 50th episode (the last of this season) with communication theorist Amit Pinchevski . Amit’s recent book Echo (MIT Press) explores its topic through mythology, etymology, history, technology, and philosophy. The book challenges…
- Lauren E. Osborne, "Hearing Islam: The Sounds of a Global Religious Tradition" (Routledge, 2024)
In Hearing Islam: The Sounds of a Global Religious Tradition , Lauren Osborne delves into the sonic dimensions of Islam, exploring how the tradition’s rich soundscape offers deep insights into culture, identity, and spirituality. In this i…
- Karl Berglund, "Reading Audio Readers: Book Consumption in the Streaming Age" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
What is the future of reading? In Reading Audio Readers: Book Consumption in the Digital Age (Bloombury, 2024), Karl Berglund , Assistant Professor in Literature at Department of Literature and Rhetoric at Upsala University, examines the r…
- John Cage: Echoes of the Anechoic
Today we explore the mythology around John Cage’s visit to the anechoic chamber. The chamber was designed to completely eliminate echoes. Ironically, the tale of Cage’s experience in that space has echoed through history, affecting our und…
- Eric Dienstfrey, "Making Stereo Fit: The History of a Disquieting Film Technology" (U California Press, 2024)
Surround sound is often mistaken as a relatively new phenomenon in cinemas, one that emerged in the 1970s with the arrival of Dolby. Making Stereo Fit: The History of a Disquieting Film Technology (University of California Press, 2024) rev…
- Sonic AI
Today we hear two scholars reading their recent work on artificial intelligence. Steph Ceraso studies the technology of “voice donation,” which provides AI-created custom voices for people with vocal disabilities. Hussein Boon contemplates…
- Tiziano Manca, "Before Sound: Re-Composing Material, Time, and Bodies in Music" (Transcript Verlag, 2023)
In Before Sound: Re-Composing Material, Time, and Bodies in Music (Transcript Verlag, 2023), composer Tiziano Manca investigates the premises for and consequences of a major change in his compositional practice: this change emphasizes the…
- Words and Silences: The Thomas Merton Hermitage Tapes
Brian Harnetty ’s recent record, Words and Silences , takes voice recordings made by the famed American Trappist monk Thomas Merton and sets them within Harnetty’s musical compositions. The meditative and revealing result has been lauded b…
- The Soundworld of Harriet Tubman
Just in time for Black History Month, we share an episode we’ve been excitedly working on for a number of months now. Ethnomusicologist Maya Cunningham brings us “The Sound World of Harriet Tubman.” Maya Cunningham is an activist and jazz…
- Hildegard Westerkamp: A Life in Soundscape Composition
Today we speak to Hildegard Westerkamp , the pioneering composer, radio artist and sound ecologist. The centerpiece of all of her work is a close attention to the sonic environment and its relation to culture. We will listen to excerpts of…