Journal of Sonic Studies

About this portal
The portal is used to publish contributions for the online OA Journal of Sonic Studies, the storage of A/V materials, and the storage of previous issues.
contact person(s):
Marcel Cobussen 
,
Vincent Meelberg 
url:
http://sonicstudies.org/about
Recent Activities
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JSS Book reviews
(2023)
author(s): Journal of Sonic Studies
published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
JSS Book reviews
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Home page JSS
(2023)
author(s): Journal of Sonic Studies
published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
Home page of the Journal of Sonic Studies
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3. We are capable of so much more
(2023)
author(s): Rajni Shah
published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
The writing that follows (interspersed between other articles) is a series of personal reflections on “listening” – a term which, for me, refers to an embodied attentive state, including but not limited to the ears. I write from my own experiences as a trans non-binary person of colour and reflect specifically on the ways in which listening work relates to anti-racist and anti-colonial work. Within the writing, certain words are hyperlinks. These are offered as moments of dialogue – moments where you are invited, if you wish, to read other texts that are in relationship with the particular word, phrase, or idea that is linked. At the end of the section titled “4. Portals,” there is a short list of links to artists and authors who are directly mentioned in the text as well as a list of further references in case they are of interest.
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Voice as Instrument: Performance Poets in Conversation
(2023)
author(s): JillR
published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
This videoed conversation with two young spoken word artists, Ryan Sinclair and Sipho Ndlovu, took place in Autumn 2022 and explored their motivations to pursue what many would view currently as a precarious career in the creative and cultural industries. The project was prompted by findings from a doctoral research study undertaken by Jill Robinson in collaboration with Beatfreeks, a youth engagement organisation founded in Birmingham by Anisa Morridadi in 2013. It uses creative practices to build young people’s confidence and competences and open up opportunities for them to disrupt the unequal power relationship between them and policymakers.
There was no ‘dry run’ for the recording as Jill wanted Ryan and Sipho to speak in the moment and not come with well-prepared responses to questions provided in advance; hence the pauses and stops and starts on the recording as each of them take time to reflect before answering. Inter alia, they consider how their own experiences of growing up in Birmingham have shaped their interest in music and spoken word and how these have enabled them to make their own and other young people's voices not only to be heard but listened to by those with decision-making powers over their daily lives
Ryan and Sipho will perform their poetry as part of the launch event for this special issue on 10 March 2023. Details will be made available shortly.
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Editorial
(2023)
author(s): Fadia Dakka, Kirsten Forkert, Ed McKeon, Jill Robinson and Ian Sergeant
published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
Editorial
Fadia Dakka, Kirsten Forkert, Ed McKeon, Jill Robinson and Ian Sergeant
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The Labour of Listening in Troubled Times
(2023)
author(s): Kate Lacey
published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
This article explores some of the implications and limitations of framing political debates as a politics of voice and builds on the idea of “listening out” as a necessary technique of political action (Lacey 2013: 3-21). Political listening in this sense is about keeping channels of communication open, accepting ongoing difference and conflicts of interest. It is, therefore, a difficult, challenging and risk-laden labour in the best of times and all the more so in times of division and conflict (Bickford 1996; Hofman 2020). Meanwhile, listening in media studies has tended to conceive of listening, if not as entirely passive, then primarily as a kind of decoding or translation practice – a practice of response. This article is concerned with the labour of political listening in the mediated public sphere. It describes the productive power of listening to generate a space for “voice” and explores the labour involved in preparing the space, time, setting, mood, technologies, and techniques for listening and how that labour is variously valued and exchanged. And it builds on work that thinks about listening not exclusively in relation to sound, finding that sonic vocabulary and metaphors can help reframe notions of the public sphere and politics long shaped and distorted by a reliance on the visual registers of print culture and the spectacle.