We are delighted to report that Associate Professor Dr Peter McMurray has won a Cambridge University Pilkington Prize for teaching. Nominated for his innovative and inclusive teaching on popular and global musics, sound studies, and ethnomusicology, he is one of 12 recipients chosen annually by the University for this prestigious award. We extend warm congratulations!
We are equally delighted to announce that Dr McMurray will begin a European Research Council Starting Grant in the autumn of 2022. His 5-year project, ‘Ottoman Auralities’, explores histories of sound and audiovisual media in the late Ottoman Empire and Eastern Mediterranean in the long 19th century (1789-1922). This was a period of important cultural shifts well beyond classic narratives of 'decline' with complex forms of agency, institutional development, governmentality, and political violence. Sound and related media offer unique insights into the affective dimensions of this period, while also highlighting the diverse ways people listened and experienced sound, from musical performance and public processions to the establishment of schools for the Deaf and use of new recording technologies. A focus on the Ottoman Empire and Eastern Mediterranean further allows a decentering of Europe and North American within media studies. Finally, in addition to written publications, the project will also emphasise forms of sonic cartography as a way to research geographies of sound and represent them in spatial and interactive forms.
