Sound in Canada

Call for chapters
Sound in Canada: Environment, Technology, History
Deadline: 18 November 2013

For the past three decades, cultural studies has become especially attuned to sonic and auditory culture, resulting in the arrival of a new and exciting field known as “Sound Studies”. During this same period, music scholarship has expanded its own purview to include many of the same issues and research methodologies, particularly in approaching musical styles and practices that are not fully suited to more traditional modes of musicological inquiry. There is, however, no central text that offers the uniquely Canadian perspective on sound, despite the fact that Canadian cultural history is replete with studies and cultural production sensitive to the auditory environment. Chapter proposals are requested for such a text, which will provide an interdisciplinary cross-section of current research on Sound in Canada. Topics may include:

Sound and the Environment
– Sound: space and place
– Contemporary soundscapes (urban/rural)
– Sound walks
– Soundmapping
– Sound and climate change
– Noise pollution
– Sound and Northern development
– Ethnographic sound studies
– The World Soundscape Project

Sound and Technology/Technologies of Sound
– Sound and/in digital culture
– Contemporary sound art
– Online sharing
– Media convergence and intersensoriality
– Media history (radio, phonograph, player piano, etc.)

Sound in Canadian History
– Historical figures in sound studies: Barry Truax, Hugh LeCaine, R. Murray Schafer, Glenn Gould, etc.
– Histories of sound devices in Canada
– Early ethnographic research on sound in Canada
– Foundations in electroacoustics
– Historical issues
– History and historical innovations

We will also welcome papers on:
– Cultural policy and regulation (CRTC, CRIA, Factor, etc.)
– Sound in medicine and science
– Aboriginal issues and sound
– Sonic preservation and contemporary Canadian culture
– Sound in Canadian film & television

Please submit abstracts between 250-500 words and a short biographical statement by 18 November 2013 to:

Mickey Vallee mickey.vallee@uleth.ca
Department of Sociology, University of Lethbridge

or

Paul Sanden paul.sanden@uleth.ca
Department of Music, University of Lethbridge

Accepted papers, between 8000-12000 words (including endnotes), must be submitted by 30 April 2014.