ABSTRACT
Sound Studies has emerged as a vital field of academic research that exists at the crossroads of a number of disciplines. This chapter presents an overview of the disciplinary history of sound studies and some of its major themes, authors, and concepts. It offers a number of "research-generating terms": the words or phrases that have become prominent features in the intellectual terrain of sound studies. Scholars working in this field analyze sonic practices, discourses, and institutions, with the goal of better understanding "what sound does in the human world, and what humans do to the sonic world." Some authors have examined how the sounds of radio were coupled with the visual design of the receiver; or how phonograph records can become the subject of visual attention. The talking machines of the 1940s complicate that history and make an implicit claim about the benefits of taking a sound studies approach rather than a medium-specific one.
