early medieval soundscapes

Early Medieval Soundscapes Project (2019–2021; extended to 2022)

Funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (Kahkeni: 19k13100)

Early Medieval Soundscapes will bring together approaches from a variety of fields, from both the sciences and the humanities. This project seeks to reconstruct perceptions of aural phenomena, and will theorise early medieval soundscapes by considering aural events in a range of artistic productions, including literature, visual representation in manuscripts, and material culture, in direct connection with the physical, acoustic, and built environments. I am employing techniques and approaches from a variety of fields, including Literary Analysis, Philosophy, Linguistics, Sound Studies, Archaeoacoustics, as well as Deep Mapping and other geospatial digital techniques. This interdisciplinary, multilingual, and multicultural approach will provide a novel and necessary analysis of early medieval perceptions of the non-human world. 

Articles:

‘The Sound-World of Early Medieval England: A Case Study of the Exeter Book Storm Riddle’, book chapter in Ideas of the World in Early Medieval England, ed. Kazutomo Karasawa, Francis Leneghan, and Mark Atherton (Brepols, 2022).

‘Biophonic Soundscapes in the Vitae of St Guthlac’, English Studies 102 (2021), 155–79.

Conference Papers:

‘Sounding the World: Biophony and Geophony in Old English and Old Norse literature’, The 94th English Literary Society of Japan General Meeting, Doshisha University, May 21–22, 2022.

‘Knowing Ocean(s): Borders and Boundaries, from Surface to Seafloor’, International Medieval Congress, Leeds University, July 4–7, 2022.

‘Submerged: Thinking through the Sea in Early English Literature’, The 93rd English Literary Society of Japan General Meeting, Waseda University, May 22–23, 2021.

‘Material Aurality: Text, Image, and Stone in early Medieval England’, The 36th Congress of the Japan Society for Medieval English Studies, Online Conference, December 5–15, 2020.

‘The Earth Cries Out: Inanimate Aurality in Anglo-Saxon Literature’, The 35th Congress of the Japan Society for Medieval English Studies, Tokyo Future University, November 30–December 1, 2019.

‘Sonic Materialities: Aqueous Soundscapes in Anglo-Saxon Literature’, International Medieval Congress, Leeds University, July 1–4, 2019.

Articles in Preparation:

‘Sonic Journeys over Deep Seas: Testing the Faithful in Old English and Anglo-Latin Literature’ (article).

‘Material Aurality: Text, Image, and Stone in early Medieval England’ (article).