Listening to Disruption: Changing Acoustemologies in the Swiss Confederacy, c.1750-1815
Universität Genf
23.-24.06.2025
Deadline: 10.01.2025
In his Dictionnaire de Musique (Paris 1767), Jean-Jacques Rousseau – “Citoyen de Genève” – included a table of music examples from around the globe that also featured the Swiss herding song Air Suisse appellé le Rans des Vaches. When heard by Swiss mercenaries abroad, Rousseau declared, the song would overwhelm them emotionally and render them incapable of fighting, while others would remain untouched by the melody. It was not the music itself that caused this effect, said Rousseau, but rather its function as a “signe mémoratif”, a “sign of remembrance” for the Swiss mercenaries, who heard their former lives encapsulated in the melody.
Rousseau describes in his Dictionnaire what in today’s terms might be called an acoustemological experience. Originally developed by the ethnomusicologist Stephen Feld in 1992, acoustemology describes “sonic experience as a way of knowing” (Rice 2018). In subsequent decades, Feld’s term has proven to be a foundational concept for the emergent fields of acoustic history or historical sound studies. For an overview, see James Mansell, Historical Acoustemology: Past, Present and Future, 2021, and Emily Wilbourne and Suzanne Cusick, Acoustemologies in Contact. Sounding Subjects and Modes of Listening in Early Modernity, 2021.
While the Ranz des vaches became one of Switzerland’s emblematic sonic embodiments, the tune did not reflect the profound political and economic upheavals that transformed the Swiss Confederacy between 1750 and 1815. What remained constant, however, was the act of listening as a form of knowing and understanding: a crucial element in the slow process of Swiss self-definition during this period of change.
Aside from imaginations of alpine idylls, the sonic experience of the Swiss Confederacy in the eighteenth century also encompassed the rhythms of the developing industries in the still largely rural country, which disrupted historical patterns of subsistence. The networks of global trade supported an elite that had the means and leisure to participate in urban concert life as it expanded, which in turn established distinct modes of knowing through sound, music, and music theater performance, that were not only new but took on distinctly Swiss forms. However, these emerging acoustemologies excluded large segments of the population, particularly women and non-citizens of lower socioeconomic status.
The revolutions of the late eighteenth century, the proclamation and collapse of the Helvetic Republic, and the transformations leading up to the Congress of Vienna in 1815 altered dominant acoustemologies. Sound, song, and music became saturated with meanings that sought to reconfigure political power and align it with evolving concepts such as human rights and republicanism. In the fractured environment of the Confederacy and its allies, where languages, cultures, political systems, and confessions collided, actors had to adapt their sonic understanding to often disruptive circumstances.
The interdisciplinary conference at the University of Geneva entitled “Listening to Disruption: Changing Acoustemologies in the Swiss Confederacy, c.1750–1815”, invites proposals for papers that address these intertwined threads and contribute to a discussion ofthe sonic practices and acoustemologies of eighteenth-century Switzerland and its neighboring regions. These might include, but are not limited to,
- Concerts and bourgeois musicking as acoustemological experiences
- Rural and urban soundscapes in written accounts
- Sound, song, and music in the wake of the Atlantic revolutions
- Listening and early tourism
- Objects as sources of acoustic history
- Methodological considerations
The conference will be held June 23-24, 2025, at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. Papers are 30 minutes in length and may be given in English or French. A remote option is available if needed. Abstracts of up to 200 words, a biographical note, and an indication of whether the paper will be presented online can be sent to cla.mathieu@unige.ch until January 10, 2025. The committee will notify applicants of its decision by January 20, 2025.
Conference organizers and scholarly committee:
Prof. Dr. Christoph Riedo (Geneva), Dr. Cla Mathieu (Salzburg)
Conference website: https://www.unige.ch/lettres/armus/unites/music/evenements/colloques/listening-disruption