Expanding Transdisciplinary Sound Studies

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This new SOUND+Network seeks to achieve something truly outstanding and remarkable:

we want to extend transdisciplinary collaborations around, through, and with sound much, much further into the realms of the technical, natural, and medical sciences – and all other fields of expertise, craft, activism, and research.

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Since its inception in the early 2000s, the new field of sound studies has served as a broad and truly transdisciplinary meeting place for researchers from all fields concerned with sound:

historical, sociological, aesthetic, anthropological, musicological, theological, media, political or cultural studies in the humanities, artistic practices, acoustic research, research on hospitals and medical practices, research on sonic subjectivities, affects and imaginations, research on the effects of sound in urban and non-urban environments, research on technologies related to the development, distribution and use of audio media, research on product development and professional audio communication, research on sound in the farthest reaches of our biosphere, sound in space, sound underwater, sound inside human and non-human bodies.

After some 20 years of sound studies, it has become clear that researchers in the technical, natural, or medical sciences are happy to collaborate with scholars in the humanities in the study of sound; indeed, such partnerships have become a true hallmark of sound studies, and very often scholars move back and forth between these fields on a regular basis, gaining, combining, and expanding their expertise.

But more often than not, experts from outside the humanities tend to see themselves primarily as visitors, representatives, as ambassadors, bringing their particular insights to the humanities and to sound researchers.

They do not seem to see themselves as an inherent part of sound studies.

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This new network is therefore an invitation to sound researchers, scholars, activists, and craftspersons from truly all possible fields on this planet – especially from outside the humanities.

We are curious to hear, see, and experience all the insights into sound that the technical, natural, and medical sciences, as well as all other practices, disciplines, activism, and crafts, have gathered – and that will only broaden the scope of what sound studies will and could be in the coming decades of the 21st century and beyond.

You find all the details about the network, its founding memebers as well as the conference in Lund, November 20-21, 2025, at this link:

https://www.lmc.lu.se/en/activities/2025/soundpurpose-inaugural-conference-sound-network-transdisciplinary-research-sound

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