Editorial

With this issue, Sound Studies turns a new page. Over the past six years, the journal has gone from strength to strength establishing itself as the leading academic platform for the humanistic study of sound in all its manifestations. From the study of soundscapes and sound in urban geography to the history of sound in psychology and obstetrics to the politics of acoustic surveillance to the sounds of war in film, the range of topics covered has been truly interdisciplinary and diverse. Much of this would have been impossible without the sturdy support of countless reviewers and the book and sound review editors in charge of the past six volumes, Nina Eidsheim, Marina Peterson, Jens Papenburg and Zeynep Bulut. I am also grateful for Jens’ and Zeynep’s continued dedication to the sound review section, and I warmly welcome historian of the senses Andrew Kettler at UCLA as new book review editor succeeding Marina. Andrew already hit the ground running in increasing the number of book reviews and in adding a new section “Books of sonic interests” that lists recent publications of interest to sound studies. This listing will become a permanent feature of all future issues. Finally, a debt of gratitude is also due to Michael Bull as founding editor and to the outgoing members of the Editorial Board who generously shared their time and have given advice on a wide range of matters.

I would also like to welcome eight new members who have graciously agreed to join the Board for the next phase in our journey. Leonardo Cardoso is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Performance Studies at Texas A&M University and the author of Sound-Politics in São Paulo (Oxford University Press 2019), an ethnographic account of noise control debates in the most populous city in the Americas.

Louis Chude-Sokei is Professor of English and Director of the African American Studies Program at Boston University. Among his publications are the award-winning book, The Last Darky: Bert Williams, Black on Black Minstrelsy and the African Diaspora (Duke University Press 2006) and The Sound of Culture: Diaspora and Black Technopoetics (Wesleyan University Press 2016). He is also founder of the Sonic Art/Archiving Project, Echolocution.

Marcel Cobussen is Full Professor of Auditory Culture and Music Philosophy at Leiden University in the Netherlands and the Orpheus Institute in Ghent (Belgium). He is the author of numerous publications, including Thresholds. Rethinking Spirituality Through Music (Ashgate 2008), Music and Ethics, co-authored with Nanette Nielsen (Ashgate 2012), and The Field of Music Improvisation (Leiden University Press 2017). He has also co-edited (with Michael Bull) the Bloomsbury Handbook of Sonic Methodologies (2020). In addition, he is a founding editor of the online Journal of Sonic Studies https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/558606/558607.

Mara Mills is a historian of science and Associate Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University with expertise in sound studies, disability studies, business history, the history of electronics, and the history of the telephone. She is the co-founder and co-director of the NYU Centre for Disability Studies. She is also co-editor of Testing Hearing. The Making of Modern Aurality (Oxford University Press 2020) and author of the forthcoming monograph Hearing Loss and the History of Information Theory (Duke University Press).

Julie Beth Napolin is Associate Professor of Digital Humanities at the New School in New York. In addition to being a radio producer, she authored The Fact of Resonance. Modernist Acoustics and Narrative Form (Fordham University Press 2020)

Marina Peterson is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin and a former book review editor of this journal. She is also coeditor of Between Matter and Method: Encounters in Anthropology and Art (Bloomsbury Academic 2017), and the author of Sound, Space, and the City: Civic Performance in Downtown Los Angeles (University of Pennsylvania Press 2012) and of Atmospheric Noise: The Indefinite Urbanism of Los Angeles, forthcoming with Duke University Press.

Dylan Robinson is a xwélmexw (Stó:lō/Skwah) artist and writer, and the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Arts at Queen’s University. His current research focuses on reconnecting of Indigenous songs held by museums with communities who were prohibited by law to sing these songs as part of Canada’s Indian Act from 1882‒1951.

Last but not least, Adel-Jing Wang is an Associate Professor in the College of Media and International Culture at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China. A graduate of Ohio University, she has published in Social Science Research, Leonardo, Leonardo Music Journal, Journal of Popular Music Studies, and Representations. Her book Sound and Affect: An Anthropology of China’s Sound Practice (Zhejiang University Press 2017) explores the concepts of freedom, affect and sound through anthropological research on China’s sound culture. Her second book Half Sound, Half Philosophy; Aesthetics, Politics and History of China’s Sound Art is forthcoming from Bloomsbury in 2021.