Retuning the Screen: Sound Methods and the Aural Dimension of Film and Media History

Aural epistemologies reframes cinema and visual media as research objects through theoretical concepts and listening culture.

Far from merely considering the aural ‘segments’ of audiovisual texts (i.e. the soundtrack) in terms of their expressive and artistic significance, or being concerned only with ‘audio’ and technologically mediated sound in and of itself, this volume aims to understand how the theoretical concepts and methods developed to investigate aurality could reframe cinema and visual media as research objects. Distributed across ten different thematic sections, the contributors develop the theoretical content of ‘aural epistemologies’ in Film and Media Studies, discuss the role of listening culture in our experience as film spectators and media users and, finally, re-assess the significance of sound archives and sonic archaeologies in relation to our knowledge of past (sound)mediascapes.