Carolyn Birdsall studied History and Media/Communications at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. Since 2009, she is Assistant Professor of Television and Cross-Media Culture. Birdsall is currently the MA program director (Media Studies) and coordinator of international exchanges.

Birdsall's doctoral research examined the cultural significance of sound technologies in everyday life and urban environments during National Socialism in Germany. The resulting monograph, Nazi Soundscapes, appeared with Amsterdam University Press in 2012 and was the recipient of the ASCA Book Award 2013. 

In her current research, Birdsall investigates the history of sound archiving in broadcasting, with a related interest in concepts of "documentary sound" in European radio and sound film. A part of this new work has appeared in the volume Soundscapes of the Urban Past: Staged Sound as Mediated Cultural Heritage (2013). 

Recent news / upcoming

Upcoming: invited speaker "Music and Noise" workshop, Science Museum London (April 2015) 

Upcoming: "Audio History" panel, NECS 2015: Archives Of/For The Future, Lodz (June 2015). 

Upcoming: panel on the sound archival and media history of ethnomusicology, SFE-BFE 2015, Musee du quai Branly, Paris (July 2015).

Publications

> Monographs / Edited Volumes

Nazi Soundscapes: Sound, Technology and Urban Space in Germany, 1933-1945. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012.

Recipient of the ASCA Book Award 2013

• Open access (free download)

Rethinking Theories of Television Sound. Special Issue of Journal of Sonic Studies 3 (2012). Co-edited with Anthony Enns.

Inside Knowledge: (Un)doing Ways of Knowing in the Humanities. Co-edited with Maria Boletsi, Pieter Verstraete and Itay Sapir. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2009.
Sonic Mediations: Body, Sound, Technology. Co-edited with Anthony Enns. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2008. 

> Chapters / Articles (selection since 2013)

“Resounding City Films: Vertov, Ruttmann and Early Experiments with Documentary Sound Aesthetics” in Music and Sound in Documentary Film, edited by Holly Rogers. New York: Routledge. 21-41.

"Sound Aesthetics and the Global Imagination in German Media Culture around 1930" in Sounds of Modern History: Auditory Cultures in 19th and 20th Century Europe, edited by Daniel Morat. New York: Berghahn. 256-277.

Entry on "Sound" in OUP Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, edited by Michael Kelly. New York: Oxford UP. 23-27.
"Forum: The Senses" (with Jan-Frieder Missfelder, Daniel Morat and Corine Schleif). German History 32.2 (2014): 256-273.

"Sonic Artefacts: Reality Codes of Urbanity in Early German Radio Documentary" in Soundscapes of the Urban Past: Staged Sound as Mediated Cultural Heritage, edited by Karin Bijsterveld. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2013. 129-168.

"(In)audible Frequencies: Sounding out the Contemporary Branded City" in Paris-Amsterdam Underground: Essays on Cultural Resistance, Subversion,and Diversion, edited by Christoph Lindner & Andrew Hussey. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2013. 115-131.
"Die Orchestrierung urbaner Akustik: dokumentarische Form, akustische Medien und die moderne Stadt" in Ton: Texte zur Akustik im Dokumentarfilm, edited by Volko Kamensky & Julian Rohrhuber. Berlin: Vorwerk 8, 2013. 76-97.
"Of Sound Mind: Mental Distress and Sound in Twentieth-Century Media Culture" (with Senta Siewert). Special Issue: Madness and Media. Tijdschrift voor Mediageschiedenis 16.1 (2013).

> Invited Talks and Keynotes (selection since 2013)

Keynote address at European Sound Studies Association (ESSA) conference: Mapping the Field, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, 29 Jun. 2014, “Archives of Sound: Broadening the Perspective”

KlangDenken: Beiträge zur Erforschung auditiver Kultur, Humboldt Universität, Berlin, 10 Jun. 2014,
“‘Archival Impulses’ in German Radio: Collecting, Ordering and Reusing Sound, 1930-1960"

Colloquium zur Zeitgeschichte, Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut, Freie Universität Berlin, 15 May 2014,
“Sound Archiving, German Broadcasting and Memory Culture (1930-1960)”

Gender and the Past: Qualitative Approaches to Broadcast Reception, University of Beira Interior, Portugal, 1 Mar. 2013, “Locating Radio: Cultural Geographies of Radio Consumption”
The Spatial and Sensorial Appropriation of Technology (summer school keynote), TU Darmstadt-Riezlern, 24 Aug. 2012, “Hearing in History: The Radio Documentary”

> Conference Presentations (selection since 2013)

SCMS annual conference, Montreal, 14-15 Nov. 2014, co-organised workshop "Sound, Technology, and Auditory Knowledge" (with Alejandra Bronfman, Anthony Enns and Axel Volmar)
WREN symposium, Bournemouth University, Bournemouth, 14-15 Nov. 2014, "Heroes of Heritage? Women's Work in Mid-Century Broadcasting" 
Public History in a Digital World: The Revolution Reconsidered, IFPH conference, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 23-25 Oct. 2014, "Accessing Found Sounds: Private Sound Collections in Recent Documentary"

Radio as Art: Concepts, Spaces, Practices, University of Bremen, Bremen, 5-7 Jun. 2014, “Radio Art, Technology, and the Sound Archive”
Digital Archives, Audiovisual Media and Cultural Memory, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, 14-15 Nov. 2013, "Archiving Ephemera: Comparative Perspectives on Early Radio Archives"
The Radio Conference, University of Bedfordshire, Luton, 9-12 Jul. 2013, co-organised panel "Material Histories of Radio: From Networks to Receivers" (presentation: "Sonic Heritage: Radio Archiving and Production Practice in Interwar Germany")
Sound Archives and Auditory Memory from the Late-Nineteenth Century to the Present, University of Amsterdam, 18 Feb. 2013, "Post-Colonial Echoes: Radio Archives in Interwar Germany"
Power of Satire, University of Utrecht, 17-18 Jan. 2013, "Beyond Caricature: Carnival Humour and Satire in Interwar Germany."

> Conference / Workshop Organisation (since 2012)

Co-organiser, “Sound Signatures” summer and winter schools Part I: “Space, Objects and Embodied Practices,” 13-17 January 2014, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam; Part II: “Epistemologies and the Order of Sound,” 18-22 August 2014, NYU Center / Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin
Co-organiser, international workshop: Auditory Memory and Sound Archives from the Late-Nineteenth Century to the Present, Amsterdam, 18 February 2013

Co-organiser, international conference: Media Homes: Material Culture in Twentieth-Century Domestic Life, Wassenaar, 29 June 2012                              

Department of Media Studies, UvA

In 2014-2015 I will coordinate and teach in the BA Media & cultuur (Methoden voor Media-analyse and Televisieanalyse) and in the MA Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image (Curating the Moving Image).

BA
Core module Methoden voor Media-analyse (coordination, lectures): 2012-13, 2013-14
Core module Televisieanalyse (coordination, lectures and tutorials): 2012-13, 2013-14
Elective course Visual Culture, History and Modernity in Twentieth-Century Germany  (German minor program, with Natalie Scholz): 2012-13
Elective course Sound Cultures (with Viktoria Tkaczyk): 2012-13, 2013-14
Core module Media, Culture and Identity (coordination, lectures and tutorials): 2009-2010, 2010-2011, 2011-2012
Core module Analyse en Methode TV en Populaire Cultuur (coordination,lectures and tutorials): 2009-2010, 2010-2011, 2011-2012
Core module Hedendaagse Mediacultuur: werkgroep televisie (tutorials): 2009-10
BA-Thesis module Sound in Non-Fiction Film and Television: 2006-2007

MA
Research MA Tutorial Sound Media, Sound Aesthetics: 2010-11, 2012-13
Research Seminar Tuning In: Sound in Contemporary Television Practice: 2009-2010, 2010-2011, 2011-12

Department of Theatre Studies, UvA
BA work group Sound and Aurality in Theatre (with Pieter Verstraete): 2006-2007
BA work group Audiotheatre and Aurality in Music Theatre (with Pieter Verstraete): 2005-2006

Guest lectures (selection)

MA Elective "Music and Film," MA Musicology, UvA, "Sound and Music in the New German Cinema" 26 Nov. 2013
Master Artistic Research, Royal Academy of Arts, The Hague, 1-22 Nov. 2011. Four lecture / workshops: I. Audio-visuality: Media & Perception; II. Voice, Language, Identity; III. Sound Art, Noise, Environment; IV. Documentary Sound, Memory, Technology

Master Interior Architecture, Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam, 30 May 2011, "Aural Architecture"
Master Artistic Research, Royal Academy of Arts, The Hague, 16 May 2011, "Sound, Technology and Urban Space"
BA Elective "Emotions across Media," BA Media Studies, UvA, 1 Apr. 2011, "Sound between Affect and Emotion"

• Mediafonds ( Dutch Cultural Media Fund)
  Advisor