The Auditory Culture Reader

Edited by
MICHAEL BULL AND LES BACK

0BERG
Sensory Formations Series

Oxford New York

Contents
Notes on Contributors

xi

Acknowledgements

xvii

Introduction: I n t o Sound
Michael Bull and Les Back

P a r t I: Thinking a b o u t Sound
1
2

Open Ears
Murray Schafer

25

Hearing Loss
Leigh Eric Schmidt

41

Auditory Imagination
Don

Ihde

61

The Help of Your Good Hands: Reports on Clapping

Steven Connor

67

The Sound of Music

Douglas Kahn

77

Songtime: Sound Culture, Rhythm and Sociality

Paul Filmer

91

vin

CONTENTS

P a r t II: Histories o f Sound

7

10

11

The Auditory Markers of the Village

Alain Corbin

117

Tuning into London c.1600

Bruce R. Smith

127

Listening to the Heard Worlds of Antebellum America

Mark M. Smith

137

The Diabolical Symphony of the Mechanical Age:

Technology and Symbolism of Sound in European
and North American Noise Abatement Campaigns,
1900-40
Karin Bijsterveld

165

Medicine's Acoustic Culture: Mediate Auscultation, the

Stethoscope and the 'Autopsy of the Living'
Jonathan Sterne

191

P a r t III: Anthropologies o f Sound

12

13

14

15

A Rainforest Acoustemology
Steven Feld

223

Performing Patriotism in Native North America: Ojibwa

Powwow-sounds and the Paradoxes of Identity
Cora Bender

241

Sectarian Sound and Cultural Identity in Northern

Ireland
Paul Moore

265

Nostalgia and Radio Sound

Jo Tacchi

281

P a r t IV: Sounds in t h e City

16
17

Aural Postcards: Sound, Memory and the City

Fran Tonkiss
Sounds in the Crowd
Les Back

303
311

CONTENTS

18

19

20

IX

The Sonic Composition of the City

Jean-Paul
Thibaud

329

How Many Movements?

Caroline Basset

343

Soundscapes of the Car: A Critical Study of Automobile

Habitation
Michael Bull

357

P a r t V: Living a n d Thinking w i t h Music

21

Between the Blues and the Blues Dance: Some Soundscapes

of the Black Atlantic
Paul Gilroy
381

22

Diasporic Sounds: Dis/Located Sounds

Vic Seidler

397

The Sounds of Alterity

Sanjay Sharma

409

Calypso Kings
Stuart Hall

419

Bessie Smith: 'Thinking Blues'

Susan McClary

427

23

24

25

26 'Chatting' for Change!: Interview with William

(Lez) Henry
27

28

Sonic Dominance and the Reggae Sound System Session

Julian Henriques

435

451

Resistance
Richard

Sennett

481

Afterword
The Indefensible Ear: A History
Hillel Schwartz
Index

487
503