Thinking with Sound: A New Program in the Sciences and Humanities around 1900

Thinking with Sound explores how auditory knowledge was formed in the sciences and humanities around 1900, influenced by the identification of the auditory cortex in neuroanatomy. It shows how this led to a debate between scholars and scientists, and how new auditory knowledge was applied in industry and the aesthetic realm.

Format: Hardback
Length: 304 pages
Publication date: 07 February 2023
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press

Thinking with Sound explores the development of auditory knowledge in the sciences and humanities during the decades around 1900. When the outside world is quiet, a variety of sounds, including inner voices, snippets of past conversations, imaginary debates, and beloved and unloved melodies, often come to mind. What should we make of these sonic companions?

Thinking with Sound investigates a period when these and other newly perceived aural phenomena prompted a far-reaching debate. Through case studies from Paris, Vienna, and Berlin, Viktoria Tkaczyk demonstrates that the identification of the auditory cortex in late nineteenth-century neuroanatomy affected numerous academic disciplines across the sciences and humanities. "Thinking with sound" allowed scholars and scientists to bridge the gaps between theoretical and practical knowledge, and between academia and the social, aesthetic, and industrial domains. As new recording technologies prompted new scientific questions, new auditory knowledge found application in industry and the broad aesthetic realm. Through these conjunctions, Thinking with Sound offers a deeper understanding of today's second "acoustic turn" in science and scholarship.

Dimension: 229 x 152 x 15 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780226823287