Event: Exploring the Soundscapes of Incarceration

When: Wednesday 19th February 2025 | 2 – 3.15 pm

Where: Warwick Law School (S2.09) & Online

MS Teams Link: https://tinyurl.com/3ftjrnev 

Paper Abstracts:

Appreciating the ugly: Researching the impact of prison soundscapes by Katy Herrity (University of Cambridge)

“I’ve been in jail ever since I was 15, so all I hear, every day, is keys. Even when I get out, if I’ve been out on the road, all I hear is keys and I think I’m in jail.” Even the most cursory engagement with romantic poetry prompts a consideration of the influence and effect of immersion in the natural environment. Here I reflect on the impact of prolonged exposure to clangs, bangs, screams and alarms. How might we research soundscapes and what value might that bring to our understanding? How does this affect those who live and work in these environments and what does this tell us about prison life?

Sonic Agency, Discipline and Aestheticizing Violence at the Qasr Museum (Iran) by Professor Laudan Nooshin (City St George's, University London)

This talk explores the role of sound in a former carceral space, now a museum. The Qasr (‘Castle’) Museum and Gardens date back to 1807, soon after Tehran became the capital city of Iran. Built by order of Fath Ali Shah (r.1797-1834), it served as a royal summer palace before falling into disuse. After Reza Shah Pahlavi came to power in the 1920s, and as part of growing state security at that time, a new building was constructed on the site and opened in 1929 as Iran’s first modern prison. From the 1930s Qasr became infamous as a place of detention for political prisoners. The site continued to serve as a prison until the early 2000s and was later renovated and re-opened as a museum and park in 2012. The talk is in two parts: the first explores the prison’s sonic past with a focus on the period following the 1953 coup d’etat and drawing on archival sources and testimonies of former political prisoners. I examine how music and sound afforded prisoners agency, whilst at the same time serving the prison’s disciplinary regime. I then examine the prison’s transformation into a museum and the role of sound in aestheticizing this site of historic violence. I ask what kinds of sonic imaginaries are performed at Qasr and more generally what the implications are for sound when a site of incarceration becomes a tourist attraction.