Scandinavian resonances

Last week the first meeting of the Nordic Research Network for Sound Studies took place in Copenhagen. With the director of the network, Erik Granly Jensen, and with a handful of great Scandinavian colleagues who lead the PhD-groups from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden the group of international, non-Scandinavian scholars (amongst them Michael Bull, Anahid Kassabian, Marcel Cobussen, Heikki Uimonen and Morten Michelsen) discussed a possible outline for the workshops, seminars and a conference in the next two years. It is really nice to see how an international community of sound studies-scholars, -researchers and -students is forming step by step these days. And the Danish colleagues do a great job in promoting the consistency of this new research field via conferences (e.g. SoundActs in 2010) or with such a network.

Consequentially we found even the time at the end of our meeting to discuss further steps towards an inclusive European association for sound studies-scholars and -researchers (with special invitation to all research-oriented artists and designers as well as to all non-European sound studies-afficionados). Moreover a European, networked research project in almost a dozen cities or agglomerations is currently being conceptualized – as well as the basic administrative set-up for a scholarly association and its benefits it has to offer for its members. In the next weeks and months all of this shall be ready to go online and it will surely be widely spread. It will be an important and inspiring year for international sound studies, I am quite sure right now. And it’s only January.