Books & Book Contributions

Sonic Skills Cover High ResolutionKarin Bijsterveld (2019), Sonic Skills: Listening for Knowledge in Science, Medicine and Engineering (1920s- present). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

This open access book explains why listening for knowledge plays an ambiguous, if fascinating, role in the sciences. For what purposes have scientists, engineers and physicians listened to the objects of their interest? How did they listen exactly? And why has listening often been contested as a legitimate form of access to scientific knowledge? This concise monograph combines historical and ethnographic evidence about the practices of listening on shop floors, in laboratories, field stations, hospitals, and conference halls, between the 1920s and today.

Synthetic monograph about the Sonic Skills project, available as an open access publication since 2018.

The entire monograph is available for download here.

 

listening-in-the-fieldJoeri Bruyninckx (2018), Listening in the Field: Recording and the Science of Birdsong. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

The transformation of sound recording into a scientific technique in the study of birdsong, as biologists turned wildlife sounds into scientific objects. Based on Joeri Bruyninckx’ dissertation as part of the Sonic Skills project.

For more information, see here.

 

ohssThe Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies, edited by Trevor Pinch and Karin Bijsterveld. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.

For more information, including a preview of the book, see here. Also see the companion website, which collects sound files, videos and images for many of the chapters.

The following chapters are particularly relevant for the Sonic Skills project:

  • Trevor Pinch and Karin Bijsterveld, “New Keys to the World of Sound”, pp. 3-35.
  • Stefan Krebs, “‘Sobbing, whining, rumbling’: Listening to Automobiles as Social Practice”, pp. 79-101.
  • Joeri Bruyninckx, “Sound Sterile. Making Scientific Field Recordings in Ornithology”, pp. 127-150.
  • Alexandra Supper, “The Search for the ‘Killer Application’: Drawing the Boundaries around the Sonification of Scientific Data”, pp. 249-270.

 

geschulte_ohrDas geschulte Ohr: Eine Kulturgeschichte der Sonifikation, edited by Andi Schoon & Axel Volmar. Bielfeld: transcript, 2012.

For more information, including a preview of the book (in German), see here.

The following chapters are related to the Sonic Skills project:

  • Alexandra Supper, “Wie objektiv sind Sonifikationen? Das Ringen um wissenschaftliche Legitimität im gegenwärtigen Diskurs der ICAD”, pp. 29-45
  • Stefan Krebs, “Automobilgeräusche als Information. Über das geschulte Ohr des Kfz-Mechanikers”, pp. 95-110.

 

 

sound studies readerThe Sound Studies Reader, edited by Jonathan Sterne. New York: Routledge, 2012.

For more information, including a preview of the book, see here.

The following chapter is related to the Sonic Skills project:

  • Karin Bijsterveld, “Listening to Machines: Industrial Noise, Hearing Loss and the Cultural Meaning of Sound”, pp. 152-167.

 

 

airy curtainsAiry Curtains in the European Ether: Broadcasting and the Cold War, edited by Alec Badenoch, Andreas Fickers and Christian Henrich-Franke. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2013.

For more information, including a preview of the book, see here.

The following chapter is related to the Sonic Skills project:

  • Karin Bijsterveld, “Eavesdropping on Europe: The Tape Recorder and East-West Relations among European Recording Amateurs in the Cold War Era”, pp. 101-121.

 

acoustic cityThe Acoustic City, edited by Matthew Gandy and BJ Nilsen. Berlin: Jovis, 2014.

For more information, including a preview of the book, see here.

The following chapter is related to the Sonic Skills project:

  • Joeri Bruyninckx, “Silent City: Listening to Birds in Urban Nature”, pp. 42-48

 

 

schluesselwerke

Schlüsselwerke der Science & Technology Studies, edited by Diana Lengersdorf and Matthias Wieser. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2014.

For more information, including a preview of the book, see here.

The following chapter is related to the Sonic Skills project:

  • Stefan Krebs, “The Sound (Studies) of Science & Technology”, pp. 353-362.

 

sound as popular cultureSound as Popular Culture: A Research Companion, edited by Jens Gerrit Papenburg and Holger Schulze. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2016.

For more information, including a preview of the book, see here.

The following chapter is related to the Sonic Skills project:

  • Karin Bijsterveld, “Ethnography and Archival Research in Studying Cultures of Sound”, pp. 99-109.

 

The following books did not directly emerge out of the Sonic Skills project, but do report on related research:

mechanical-soundMechanical Sound: Technology, Culture, and Public Problems of Noise in the Twentieth Century, by Karin Bijsterveld. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2008.

For more information, including a preview of the book, see here.

The research in this book has laid the groundwork for what later became the Sonic Skills project.

 

 

 

sound and safe

Sound and Safe: A History of Listening Behind the Wheel, by Karin Bijsterveld, Eefje Cleophas, Stefan Krebs and Gijs Mom. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

For more information, including a preview of the book, see here.

This book publication emerged out of the research project Selling Sound: the standardization of sound in the European car industry and the hidden integration of Europe.