Spring Schedule “Auditory History”

The IMS Study Group “Auditory History” presents its 2026 spring schedule!

COLLOQUIUM | FEBRUARY 24, 2026 | 17-18 CET | ONLINE
Sophia Rosenfeld (Pennsylvania): 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? Sophia 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.

ONFERENCE | MARCH 18-21 2026 | PARIS, FRANCE AND ONLINE
“The Historical Ear: What is Auditory History?” Inaugural Conference of the IMS Study Group Auditory History

The big event is here: we will gather in Paris for the Study Group’s first conference! Sixty-five presenters will deliver around sixty papers, alongside paired papers, panels, and a workshop, exploring what auditory history is and where it begins and ends. See our conference webpage for the full programme and abstracts.

COLLOQUIUM | APRIL 2, 2026 | 9-10 CET | ONLINE
Jin Qiu (Melbourne): 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 | MAY 14, 2026| 16-18 CET | ONLINE | REGISTRATION REQUIRED (FORM HERE)
Reading Sound, Reading (with) the Historical Ear

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 (link here).


PANEL | JUNE 16, 2026 | 18-20 CET | ONLINE
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.


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
nemos (February 3, 2026). Spring Schedule “Auditory History” NEMoS. Retrieved March 9, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/15m31


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