The Sound of Nature: Soundcapes and Environmental Awareness, 1750-1950

The project ‘The Sound of Nature: Soundscapes and Environmental Awareness, 1750-1950’ investigates representations of natural sound in a period that is frequently considered to have been central in constructing contemporary environmental ideologies and in developing institutions for conservation. The project also interrogates the complexity of how natural sound and natural silence are constructed in other historical periods and how that continues to shape contemporary attitudes to the sound of nature. In the process, it will create a transferable methodology for thinking about how ephemeral phenomena shape our understanding of the environment in the past, present and future.