2024
Jonathan Sterne
Guggenheim winner explores links between sound and artificial intelligence
2024
Guggenheim winner explores links between sound and artificial intelligence
McGill Professor of Culture and Technology Jonathan Sterne was at first surprised and then “thrilled” to be awarded a 2024 Guggenheim Fellowship for his work on the cultural dimensions of communication technologies.
“It is such an honour to be in great company,” he said of joining the impressive list of Guggenheim Fellowship laureates.
A historian and philosopher of media technology, Professor Sterne’s research focuses on sound, culture, and disability. He explores the cultural dimensions of communication technologies, especially their form and role in large-scale societies.
One of his major ongoing projects looks at the history and theory of sound in the modern West. He has published dozens of articles and book chapters on a wide range of topics in media theory and historiography, disability studies, science and technology studies, new media, and cultural studies. He has also written on the politics of academic labour.
As a researcher, he employs historiographic, philosophical, and interpretive methods; long-form interviews and ethnographic participant observation. In addition to his books and articles, Sterne has published online since 1994, experimenting with multimodal and open access approaches, which are now gathered under the digital humanities umbrella.
Professor Sterne says the Guggenheim award will provide him with extra time and resources for his work on a new book about sound and artificial intelligence.
