IMS Study Group “Auditory History”

General Assembly | What's New with the Study Group?
2025-09-23 16:00 - 17:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Online
As every September, the Study Group will meet in an online meeting to discuss recent news, future plans, and to hear about the members’ activities. This is a closed meeting and registration is necessary. Register here: https://forms.gle/2TqQ22VihestmCkw6

Colloquium: Alexandros Maria Hatzikiriakos (Sheffield) - instead of Margret Scharrer (Bern)
2025-10-28 16:00 - 17:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Online
Sonic Identities in Early Modern Crete and Cyprus 1453-1700
Alexandros Maria Hatzikiriakos will present his new MSCA/UKRI project SONICC, that investigates the acoustic communities of Crete and Cyprus in the early modern period through the lens of intermedial and sonic methodologies. For more about the project, see: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FZ001153%2F1
Members will receive the Zoom link automatically. If you are not a member of the group, send us an email to receive a link.

Reading Group: Reading Sound and Literature
2025-11-25 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Online
Despite its fundamental role as a historical source, literature is rarely discussed within cultural sound studies. This autumn’s reading-group session will focus on recent contributions that explore the relationship between the written and auditory worlds. The discussion will open a broader conversation about how to write about sound and how sonic experience shapes literary creation.
Registration for this event is required. Register here: https://forms.gle/92drf1udbRzeGBNc6

Colloquium: Julia Samp (Aachen) & Hannah Potthof (Chemnitz)
2025-12-10 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Online
Historical Perspectives on Medieval Sound(s) and Soundscapes
How do historians concieve sound, think about it, and do sound research? What can other disciplines, namely musicology, learn from historians’ approach? These questions will be addressed through two project presentations by Hannah Potthoff and Julia Samp, who will present their dissertation projects considering medieval auditory perception, interpretation, and tradition. Their dissertations projects were funded by two DFG-funded projects, “Belliphonie im Mittelalter” (TU Chemnitz, 2021-2024) and “Lärm vor Dezibel” (RWTH Aachen University, 2022-2025).

Members will receive the Zoom link automatically. If you are not a member of the group, send us an email to receive a link.

5th International Conference "Power, Identities and Images of Cities: Music and Ceremonial Books in Western Europe, from the Middle Ages to Modernity"
2025-12-12 00:00 - 2025-12-13 23:59 (Europe/Helsinki) | Online
12-13 December, 2025 | Malaga, Spain | online
Participation is free of charge, online and in person. Register here: http://u.uma.es/g9N/
The focal point of this fifth edition of the International Conference Power, identities and images of cities: Music and ceremonial books in Western Europe, from the Middle Ages to Modernity (University of Málaga, 12–13 December 2025, online) is the study of royal proclamations and funerary ceremonies of the Spanish Bourbons during the period 1700–1843. These topics constitute the core of the research project Ad honorem regis (PID2024-160998NB-I00), funded by the Spanish National Research Plan with European funds, and co-organizer of the conference together with the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Málaga.
The conference brings together international specialists to examine, from the perspectives of Cultural History, the History of Mentalities, Art History, and Musicology, urban ceremonial practices, visual and sonic languages, and the forms of power representation deployed in royal proclamations and funerary celebrations held in various cities of peninsular Spain. It also explores the potential of Digital Humanities to reconsider and expand the traditional methodologies applied to the study of these phenomena, particularly regarding the treatment and analysis of their sources. The event is supported by a range of scholarly societies, cultural institutions, and international research networks.
The programme is available here: Programme

Colloquium: Sophia Rosenfeld (Pennsylvania)
2026-02-24 17:00 (Europe/Paris) | Online
Historical Ear, Auditory History, and the Future
The opening session of the spring term introduces our central theme: what is auditory history, what has become of the historical ear, and what might we listen for next? S ophia Rosenfeld will map the field as it stands, highlight questions likely to matter in 2026, and set the tone for the term’s guiding debates.

Inaugural Conference: “The Historical Ear: What is Auditory History?”
2026-03-18 00:00 - 2026-03-21 23:59 (Europe/Helsinki) | The University of Chicago John W. Boyer Center, 41 rue des Grands Moulins, Paris, 75013, France
The University of Chicago John W. Boyer Center, Paris, France
For all details, visit the conference webpage: https://auditoryhistory.musicology.org/conference/

Colloquium: Jin Qiu (Melbourne)
2026-04-02 09:00 - 10:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Online
How We Used to Endure Noise: The Emergence of Auditory Order in Modern China
In this colloquium, Jin Qiu will use Lao She’s 1930s short story Sound Film and other Republican-era novels, diaries, and memoirs to reconstruct early Chinese cinema as a sonically contested public space. Tracing loud talk, commentary, coughing, and audience disputes—practices inherited from opera-theatre culture—they will show how silent spectatorship emerged as a historically produced discipline and how “noise” became newly framed as incivility.

Reading Group: Reading Sound, Reading (with) the Historical Ear
2026-05-14 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Paris) | Online
This reading group is a companion space to the March conference, oﬀering additonal time to return to think about, and discuss the fundamental texts of auditory history. Registration is required: https://forms.gle/rofj6Te8PPiF4yDbA
Chair: Alexandros Maria Hatzikiriakos (Sheffield)
Discussants: TBA
Key reading: TBA

Panel: Subcontinental Sonorities
2026-06-16 18:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Paris) | Online
Because of time zone issues, the time of this event might change. We will inform about this change in time.
Subcontinental Sonorities: Modernity, Forms of Archives, and the Politics of Listening
This panel brings together five papers that explore modernity, archival memory, and the politics of listening in the Indian subcontinent, shaped by the complex histories of postcolonial South Asia. Convened by Nakshatra Chatterjee (IISER Bhopal, India) with Budhaditya Chattopadhyay (University of Bergen), the panel features presentations by Chattopadhyay, Chatterjee, Sayan Dey (Bayan College, Oman), Sebanti Chatterjee (SRM University–AP, India), and Shikha Jhingan (Jawaharlal Nehru University, India). Across these perspectives, the panel shares a common interest in unpacking the manifold voices and sonorities of the region and its situated acoustemologies.
