Sonic Skills

Karin Bijsterveld is historian and professor of Science, Technology and Modern Culture at Maastricht University. She is author of Mechanical Sound: Technology, Culture, and Public Problems of Noise in the Twentieth Century (2008), co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies (2012) and co-editor of Sound Souvenirs: Audio Technologies, Memory and Cultural Practices (2009). Three recent publications are the edited volume Soundscapes of the Urban Past: Staged Sound as Mediated Cultural Heritage (2013), the monograph Sound and Safe: A History of Listening Behind the Wheel (2014), and a special issue on Auditory History guest edited for The Public Historian (2015).

• Acknowledgements.- 1. Listening for Knowledge: Introduction.- 2. Sonic Signs: Turning to, Talking about and Transcribing Sound.- 3. Modes of Listening: Why, How and to What?.- 4. Resounding Contestation: The Ambiguous Status of Sonic Skills.- 5. Popping Up: The Continual Return of Sound and Listening.- 6. Ensembles of Sonic Skills: Conclusions.- References.