Wow! eBook
Atmospheric Knowledge: Environmentality, Latency, and Sonic Multimodality
Author(s): Birgit Abels (Author)
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication Date: September 9, 2025
- Edition: First Edition
- Language: English
- Print length: 186 pages
- ISBN-10: 0520417321
- ISBN-13: 9780520417328
Book Description
How do we know through atmospheres? How can being affected by an atmosphere give rise to knowledge? What role does somatic, nonverbal knowledge play in how we belong to places?
Atmospheric Knowledge takes up these questions through detailed analyses of practices that generate atmospheres and in which knowledge emerges through visceral intermingling with atmospheres. From combined musicological and anthropological perspectives, Birgit Abels and Patrick Eisenlohr investigate atmospheres as a compelling alternative to better-known analytics of affect by way of performative and sonic practices across a range of ethnographic settings. With particular focus on oceanic relations and sonic affectedness, Atmospheric Knowledge centers the rich affordances of sonic connections for knowing our environments.Editorial Reviews
From the Back Cover
“This book has potential for becoming a seminal work, providing intellectual and analytical tools for future generations of scholars across a broad range of academic terrains. The vagueness and, by definition, ineffability of atmospheres make them a heuristic resource that is abstractable and applicable across cultures and historical contingencies.”—Carola Lorea, author of
Folklore, Religion and the Songs of a Bengali Madman: A Journey between Performance and the Politics of Cultural Representation“Atmospheres are everywhere—and yet they have been surprisingly underresearched until now. This wonderfully provocative book provides a foundational text for tomorrow’s theorists in fields like anthropology, environmental studies, music and sound studies, and critical geography.”—Jim Sykes, author of
The Musical Gift: Sonic Generosity in Post-War Sri Lanka
