Call for Chapters in an Edited Volume

Soundscapes in Indian Art, Literature and Culture

Sound culture refers to the auditory environment or the location of soundscape in a certain social and cultural context. Sound culture includes the extensive impacts on our auditory experiences and the reasons behind the characteristics of the soundscape. Social and cultural organisations shape the auditory landscape over a period of time. Therefore, the socialisation and politicisation of sound are fundamentally an interconnected phenomenon. The engagement in aurality transforms into a distinct discourse that acknowledges our biological, intellectual, cultural, and social motives as both ingrained and embodied, positioning the ear at the delicate intersection of the mind and body. Soundscapes have been central to all our experiences from the beginning. However, a theoretical framing of this field of inquiry is a more recent one and it has found thought provoking resonances in art, literature and culture.

Scholars have positioned sound in popular culture and have explored the meditations of sound through the disciplines of history, literature, music, architecture etc. This ‘sonic turn’ (if we may use this phrasing) in academia has led to a proliferation of research on soundscapes, which refers to the complex array of sounds that comprise our auditory environment. For instance, scholars of musicology have examined the ways in which soundscapes shape our experiences of music, while anthropologists have studied the role of sound in shaping cultural identity. Soundscapes expand the possibility of conducting research on the everyday and the mundane. Rather than examining grand, exceptional, or spectacular sound events, sound studies often focus on the ordinary, the routine, and the banal. This approach allows researchers to uncover the ways in which sound shapes our daily experiences

The current interdisciplinary project examines the role of soundscapes in shaping our experiences by analysing the sonic dimensions of various cultural forms, including music, poetry, fiction, film, and visual art in the Indian context. This project envisions to reveal the complex ways in which sound influences our perceptions, emotions, and understanding of the world. From the sounds of the city to the silence of the wilderness, this study invites papers that explore how soundscapes are used to create meaning, evoke emotions, and construct identity.

The following sub-points (not limited to) can be used to deliberate on the research possibilities of this call for papers.

• Sound and installation art
• Sound in sculpture
• Photography
• Soundscapes in Literature
• Sound and medium of communication
• Sound culture and disability studies
• Urbanity and sound
• Affective technologies and sensoria
• Sound and memory
• Posthumanism and sound theory
• Sound and identity formation
• Sound and Marginalised Community
• Music Bands and Popular Culture
• Sound, Performance and Religion
• Singing for the People: Folk and Classical
• Music and Diaspora

This volume invites papers that will highlight an interdisciplinary approach to sound studies and not merely an exposition on the representation of sound in various art forms.

Suggested references

Sterne, Jonathan. The sound studies reader. Routledge, 2012.

Pinch, Trevor, and Karin Bijsterveld, eds. The Oxford handbook of sound studies. OUP USA, 2012.

Bull, Michael, ed. The Routledge companion to sound studies. London: Routledge, 2019.

Halliday, Sam. Sonic modernity: Representing sound in literature, culture and the arts. Edinburgh University Press, 2013.

Guidelines for authors

We are looking for abstracts that are 250-300 words in length and a brief bio-note in about 100 words.

Last date to submit abstract: May 15, 2025

Email abstracts and chapters to: soundstudies2025@gmail.com

Upon selection of abstracts, authors should send original, unpublished essays in English language with a significant research statement.

Full length chapter submission: August 30,2025

Essays should follow MLA 8th Edition with a word limit of 6000 to 7000 words.

The volume will be published by an international publishing house.

Editors

Dr Hashik N K

Assistant Professor of Cultural Studies, Tezpur University, Assam

Dr Elwin Susan John

Assistant Professor of English, Sophia College for Women, Mumbai