Captured Voices. "Foreign Peoples" in Sound Recordings - the Case of German and Austrian Research Projects in POW Camps, 1915-1918

• Applicant: Privatdozentin Dr. Britta Lange
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: from 2008 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 77043687

In the course of the year 2013 I am preparing a monograph on the Berlin Sound Archive (Humboldt University), which focuses on the collection of sound recordings of prisoners-of-war (1915-1918). The study will summarize the history of this exceptional archive and position itself within two major academic debates, namely the concepts and theoretical framework of the archival turn and, more recently, the sonic turn. Analyzing the substantial collection of war prisoners' recordings, the book will examine selected sound files considering specific theoretical aspects such as the recording procedure itself, the question of witnessing the First World War, the realm of censorship, theories regarding speech and translation as well as recorded noises and silence. Based on the methods of cultural studies, the monograph will elaborate on the development of methods for analyzing historical sound recordings, which are yet to be established and will be provisionally termed close listening. The monograph and an accompanying audio CD will appear in the course of the year 2014 - one hundred years after the outbreak of the First World War and the founding idea of the sound collection - and thereby provide a critical contribution to this anniversary.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants