CFP: Sound and Pleasure, 4/15/14

“Everything is Awesome!”: Sound and Pleasure Summer Series

CFP: Due 4/15/14,  Earliest post deadline will be June 1

Rich purrs.  Roaring crowds. Breathy whispers. Giggles, moans, squeals, exhortations of delight. Singing along at the top of your lungs.  Good Vibrations. Sweet sensations (I see you, Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch!). The first breath of quiet in the early morning.  A coffee grinder’s siren’s song.  The snap of your best pair of shoes hitting the pavement. Say it again. More please. YES.

This summer, Sounding Out! wants to talk sound and pleasure until the goosebumps rise on our skins and the DJ has saved all of our lives.  Far from frivolous, pleasure is quite a serious–and often highly profitable–business, and sound seems to be one of the finest mediums through which to give, receive, and amplify it.

At least SO! thinks so.

So tell us, What is it exactly that makes certain sounds pleasurable? Who finds those sounds pleasurable? Is sonic pleasure largely an individual experience or a social one? Is it both?  How might pleasure and its attendant listening practices conjoin the individual and the social in new ways?

More importantly, what are the politics of pleasurable sounds? Can/should pleasurable sounds be apolitical? Do they lull us into submission? Inspire us through the lulls? Or perhaps they submit us to something else altogether–new inspirations, ways of being, organizing, and listening?

You tell us.  Because it feels frivolous.  Because it is critical, vital even. Because it might be fun. Because you may like it. Or just because.

We welcome research-based posts and posts examining aural experience through a first-person narrative style; many of our posts mix both. We also welcome ideas for podcasts as well as artistic posts that use the blog format to create an original audio-visual experience.

Please pitch your idea to us in 250 (or less) of your best words by April 15th.  Send inquiries and submissions to Jennifer Stoever-Ackerman, SO!’s Editor-in-Chief, at  jsa@soundingoutblog.com.  Don’t forget to read our submission guidelines before sending us your stuff. Laissez-les bon temps roulez!

Some topics to consider:

• travel, vacations, and “new” sounds
• earworms, repetition, “earcandy”
• sex and the erotic
• love
• erotics of listening
• conversation, voices, grains of voice
• “fun” and play
• Religious ecstasy
• Dance and movement
• retail and commodification of sound
• entertainment
• games, gaming, and sports
• therapy
• apps, crowds, chants, group songs
• Karaoke
• Theories of Affect and Sound Studies
• Volume!!
• rhythm, cadence, beats
• holidays, rituals, parades
• physical properties and manifestations of sound
• privilege (or lack thereof)
• issues of age and changing pleasures
• guilty pleasures, guiltless pleasures
• television and sound
• music, festivals, audiophilia
• headphones and private pleasures
• speakers and public pleasures
• psychedelia, synasthesia, and sound in concert with other senses