Dear Bioacoustics-L list serve members:
My book "Hear Where We Are: Sound Ecology, and Sense of Place" is just out on
Springer.
It is available through our website www.HearWhereWeAre.com
Free online course review copies are available here: http://bit.ly/18b8zeb
PRESS RELEASE:
Hear where you are: how sound not only informs, but places us
A new book explores sound as a means of forming a relationship with our world
New York, September 2013
School children learn that humans have five senses, all of which are used to
help make decisions. Sound is typically thought of as a means of gathering
information. But in a new book – Hear Where We Are: Sound, Ecology, and Sense
of Place – author Michael Stocker, Executive Director of Ocean Conservation
Research, proposes that sound serves a far deeper function. Sound is offered up
as a means of helping people to form relationships with their environment.
Throughout history hearing and sound perception have been typically framed in
the context of how sound conveys information and how that information
influences the listener. Hear Where We Are inverts this premise and examines
how humans and other hearing animals use sound to establish acoustical
relationships with their surroundings. In doing so, the reader learns that
hearing is the perception that allows animals to gauge the size, shape, and
density of their surroundings, sensing their placement within them. Hearing is
the sense that allows us to perceive our environment in dimensions obscured
from our vision, out of reach of our touch, and downwind of our sense of smell.
Chapter one examines how sounds like familiar voices, alarms, and the sounds of
nature, culture, and media influence how people feel, before chapter two
explores how individuals manipulate their acoustical world to serve their
interests. Chapter three breaks down the physics of sound and physiology of
hearing. Chapter four is a ‘sound menagerie’ of how other animals hear leading
to chapter five examining the foundation of “sound communication” as a
visceral connection with others and our surroundings through sound.
Stocker writes, “The larger mission of this book is to lead us into a stronger
appreciation of the world in which we live. I hope the journey through this
work will enhance the reader’s perceptions; inviting a deeper listening, and
ultimately encouraging a more conscious participation with their environment –
allowing you, the reader, to truly hear where you are.”
Michael Stocker
Hear Where We Are: Sound, Ecology, and Sense of Place
2013, XVI, 200 p. 31 illus., 12 illus. in color.
Softcover €37.44 | £19.95 | $34.99
ISBN 978-1-4614-7284-1
Review copies are available immediately, both online and in print, for
journalists and book reviewers.
Contact: Alexander Brown | Springer | tel +1 212.620.8063 |
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