Editorial

As Sound Studies is entering its third year of existence we would like to offer our deepest expression of gratitude to the members of the Editorial Advisory Board for the advice they have given during this initial phase. We especially thank Nina Eidsheim, the book review editor, and Jens Papenburg, our sound review editor, for their dedication and hard work. Nina’s role will be taken over in the next issue by Marina Peterson of the University of Texas at Austin, author of the acclaimed Sound, Space, and the City: Civic Performance in Downtown Los Angeles and co-editor of Global Downtowns and Anthropology of the Arts: A Reader.

In future issues we are also hoping to expand our sound review section and we are very pleased to welcome Zeynep Bulut, Queen’s University Belfast, to the editorial team. Zeynep will be serving as sound review editor for the UK primarily. A third sound review editor for North America will also be added soon. Finally, we welcome two new members of the Editorial Advisory Board: William Cheng and Viktoria Tkaczyk. Will teaches at Dartmouth College and is the author of the award-winning monographs Sound Play: Video Games and the Musical Imagination and of Just Vibrations. The Purpose of Sounding Good. Viktoria has written on aviation in early modern theater and is the co-editor of a volume on acoustic resonance. She currently heads up the Research Group “Epistemes of Modern Acoustics” at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin and is a Professor of Media Studies at Humboldt University, also in Berlin.

With this issue we are also launching a new section called “Second Sound.” Coined in the 1940s by Russian physicists Lev Landau and Vasily Peshkov, the term refers to the oscillations that are obtained in helium and that are propagated by wave-like motions of heat, not density as in sound. In a more metaphorical sense, we understand “second sound” to entail sonic phenomena that are noisy, turbulent, unpredictable and, most importantly, that challenge received notions of sound as being heard, present, and as object. Michael Heller’s text on sticky-shed syndrome is the perfect example of the kind of pithy and thought-provoking vignette that we have in mind for this section and that will hopefully inspire others to submit their “second” oscillations.

Every journal is only as good as the many reviewers who, while largely remaining invisible, play a crucial role, helping authors and editors and authors to turn submissions into a selection of essays that speak to a broad range of issues currently being debated in Sound Studies. Here we would like to recognize some of the reviewers who have worked with editors on this and previous issues:

Aaron S. Allen

Ben Cosgrove

Sabine Feist

Brian Hochman

Brian Kane

Roshanak Kheshti

Peter McMurray

Ana Ochoa

Thomas Porcello

Patricia Rosenmeyer

Jacob Smith

Janet Topp-Fargion

Michael Bull
Editor
Veit Erlmann
Editor