“Sound textures: the acoustic face of culture”, is the Lusófona Magazine of Cultural Studies

Volume 5, number 1 of the Lusophone Journal of Cultural Studies is already available. This edition, coordinated by Madalena Oliveira, Pedro Portela and Eduardo Vicente, is subordinated to the theme “Sound textures: the acoustic face of culture”.

According to the authors, “although radio, the telephone and the sound cinema have marked the beginning of the mass media age, uniquely transforming the circulation of information between distant spaces, the truth is that from the cultural point of view, the sound expression has been an object of timid academic efforts”.

Aware of this, they emphasize sound as “reverberation” and “vibration”, giving it “frequency and intensity”. “Despite its apparent intangibility, it is its materiality that gives texture to the spaces – physical and emotional – we inhabit”, said Madalena Oliveira, Pedro Portela and Eduardo Vicente. “Sound is also emotion and relationship and has reminiscent value and expressive qualities”, they reinforce.

In the introduction to this volume of the RLEC, the editors also affirm that “from a cultural point of view, acoustic environments are thus defining modes of feeling and of making community by regulating not only our physical orientation in space, but also our imagery”.