In recent years, new technologies and booming formats such as audiobooks and podcasts have brought new attention to sound in/of literature and books. One may even argue that we experience a resurgence of aural and oral literary culture. That may in itself seem contradictory: The word “literature” refers to written text; something essentially different from speech or oral storytelling; yet, literature has a long history of connections to sound and orality. This includes texts based on oral culture, traditions of reading aloud and performance of literary works; works which relate to – describe, thematize and/or incorporate – music, songs and sound, as well as traditions of working with rhythm and sound in poetry (or prose). Today, books and literary texts are increasingly distributed and circulated in “sound contexts” on audio-centered platforms or social media. This not only results in new modes of consuming literature through sound but also, potentially, in new (and old) categories of texts or writing styles, and it potentially leads to new social, medial and material contexts for reading and literary experience. To understand and establish an interdisciplinary dialogue on these ongoing and historical developments and phenomena, we invite contributions for a conference on sound and, in or of literature, encouraging contributions from a variety of disciplines such as sound studies, literary studies, musicology, intermedial studies, media studies, publishing studies, sociology of literature and arts, and book studies.
Relevant topics include (but are not limited to):
Audiobooks; audio narratives, born-audio fiction and audio drama
Literary/fiction podcasts and podcasts on literature
Rhythm and sound in/of literature
Voice and dialect in literature; audiobook narration and narrators
Reading aloud and oral performance of poetry and prose; shared reading
Uses of audiobooks; reading-by-listening and literary experiences through sound
Close listening and methodologies for studying audio texts
Audiobook publishing and distribution
Audiobooks and genre (e.g. romance, erotica, crime fiction, memoir…)
Audiobook communities and social dimensions of audiobook/audio fiction uses
Audiobook/audio fiction platforms and the platformization of sound culture and book cultures
Literature and/on music; music and songs in literary works
Children’s (and YA) audio fiction and audio culture
Audiobooks/reading-by-listening in schools and education
AI and new (or old) technologies in relation to audiobooks and literary culture
Enhanced audiobooks and literary audio experiments