Special Feature on “Society after COVID-19—Listening in a Time of Pandemic” in Sociologica

The latest issue of Sociologica 14, no. 2 (2020) contains a special feature on “Listening in a Time of Pandemic” co-edited by CIM scholar Dr Naomi Waltham-Smith and a collaborator and fellow sound-studies scholar at the American University in Paris, Dr Jessica Feldman.

During the pandemic, listening habits around the world have been undergoing significant transformation in response to various public health measures imposing physical distancing and stay-at-home isolation. This situation has prompted new experiments with digital mediations, transformations in modalities of protest and autonomy, and impulses towards anecdotal accounts in a bid to share experiences of isolation. The essays in this special feature, powerful and evocative by turns, range across a variety of socio-political and disciplinary concerns and point towards a crucial issue facing societies today: how to design new forms and practices of listening to foster the forms of sociality and collectivity urgently needed in a changed world.