Bloomsbury Handbook of Sonic Methodologies [Hardback]

The juxtaposition of such a large number of different and even contradictory approaches allows us to compose, by "diffraction", a multifaceted and complex picture that teaches us a lot about the interrelationships between listening regimes and discursive regimes as well as about the inevitable and at the same time fruitful precariousness of any sound methodology. * Drammaturgia * Sound studies is a disruptor. Sound cuts across the arts, sciences, engineering, history and the academy, reconfiguring things as it goes along. Its only rule is that its about the sound. This means its methods are as varied as can be and are often pitched as anti-methods. This vast methodological smorgasbord is like a sound walk. You hear echoes of standard methodologies from ethnomusicology, sound art and cultural and science studies and places like the exhibition, the archive, the studio and the field and you learn about new methods finely tuned to sound. The book and the editorial vignettes, set in a fascinating dialogical form because of the pandemic, are always smart and reflective. If you want to learn to think systematically about how sound is studied this is the place to begin your journey. * Trevor Pinch, pioneer in sound studies and Goldwin Smith Professor of Science and Technology Studies, Cornell University, USA * From music to geography, historical debate to epistemological arguments, the study of sound finds footing within a compelling range of academic and artistic contexts. The Bloomsbury Handbook of Sonic Methodologies offers a comprehensive, situated and deeply enriching view onto such diversity, capturing how researchers and practitioners approach sound as a topic and material. Such a compendium affords greater understanding of sound as the basis for a radical transdisciplinarity. * Brandon LaBelle, Professor, Art Academy, University of Bergen, Norway, and author of Acoustic Justice (Bloomsbury, 2021) * [ The book], because of its vast scope -- I have only scratched the surface of its richness in this review -- may be very helpful in deciding if, and if so when, sonic method may be best suited to act as the "what" in research projects that in some way involve sound. * Journal of Sonic Studies *