The Sonic Surrogate: Music, Technology, and the Crisis of Reproduction Volume 11

About this book

Interrogating the proliferation of audio apps, smart speakers, sleep aids, and prenatal sound systems that promise a better life through sound, this book explores how these technologies came to be promoted as a cheap solution for capitalism’s inevitable crisis of reproduction. Marie Thompson shows how—at a time when, for many, accessing and providing care are increasingly under pressure—sound and music are sold as tools to support caregiving, childrearing, domestic management, and pregnancy. Connecting this phenomenon to shifting gendered, racial, and global divisions of labor, the making of the modern family, the changing political economy of music, and evolving discourses of automation, The Sonic Surrogate sheds light on the many reproductions implicated in sound reproduction.

Details

Format

Paperback

ISBN-13

9780520433656

Publisher

University of California Press

Published

November 10, 2026

Pages

294

Weight

14.4 oz

Subject

Music