Carolyn Birdsall is Associate Professor of Media Studies, University of Amsterdam, where she is affiliated with the Television and Cross-media team. Birdsall studied at the University of New South Wales (History and Media/Communications), before completing a doctorate at the University of Amsterdam. Her first monograph, Nazi Soundscapes (AUP, 2012) was the recipient of the ASCA Book Award 2013. Birdsall is director of the ASCA Cities Project, and she currently leads the NWO-funded project TRACE (Tracking Radio Archival Collections in Europe, 1930-1960), which examines how European radio recordings were archived, circulated and re-used under conditions of war, occupation and reconstruction. Her most recent book, Radiophilia, was published with Bloomsbury in 2023.

Recent / upcoming events

- Presentation, IASA archiving conference, Valencia (23 Sept. 2024)
- Presentation, ECREA annual conference, Ljubljana (27 Sept. 2024)
- Invited talk, Sounds of Belonging: Radio, Affect, History conference (online) (30 Sept. 2024)
- Presentation, FIAT/IFTA world conference (online) (16 Oct. 2024)
- Presentation, Transmedia History: Circulations, Reconfigurations and New Methodologies conference, Lausanne (27-28 Oct. 2025)

Publications

> Monographs / Edited Volumes

Radiophilia. New York/London: Bloomsbury, 2023. 
Nazi Soundscapes: Sound, Technology and Urban Space in Germany, 1933-1945. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012. Recipient of the ASCA Book Award 2013.

Historical Traces of European Radio Archives, 1930-1960. Special Issue of TMG Journal for Media History 25.2 (2022) [co-edited with Erica Harrison].
Sensing Urban Values. Special Issue of Space and Culture 24.3 (2021) [co-edited with Anastasiya Halauniova and Linda van de Kamp].
Listening to the Archive: Sound Data in the Humanities and Sciences. Special Issue of Technology and Culture 60.2 (2019) [co-edited with Viktoria Tkaczyk].
Doing Memory Research: New Methods and Approaches. Palgrave, 2018 [co-edited with Danielle Drozdzewski].
Making Worlds in Urban Cultural Studies. Special Issue of Journal of Urban Cultural Studies 5.2 (2018) [co-edited with Simone Kalkman].
Rethinking Theories of Television Sound. Special Issue of Journal of Sonic Studies 3 (2012) [co-edited with Anthony Enns].
Inside Knowledge: (Un)doing Ways of Knowing in the Humanities. Cambridge Scholars Press, 2009 [co-edited with Maria Boletsi, Pieter Verstraete and Itay Sapir].
Sonic Mediations: Body, Sound, Technology. Cambridge Scholars Press, 2008 [co-edited with Anthony Enns].

> Chapters / Articles (selection since 2019)

"Excavating Wartime Sound Heritage of Germany, Italy, and Japan: Captured Axis Sound Recordings in the Washington, D.C. Area and their Documentation" (with Erica Harrison), IASA Journal 54 (2024): 8-21 (open access)
“For the Love of Radio: The Archival Impulse in Broadcast Institutions” in Michele Hilmes/Andrew Bottomley, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Radio and Podcasting (New York: OUP, 2024), 689-706.
"Hörspiel in the Lab: The Politics of Interdisciplinary Radio Research in Germany (1928–45)" (with Viktoria Tkaczyk), Radio Journal 22.1 (2024): 7-29
"Tracing the Archival Lives of Radio: Recorded Sound Collections in Belgian and Dutch Radio (1930s-1950s)" TMG Journal for Media History 25.2 (2022): 1-30 (open access)
"Researching Archival Histories of Radio” (with Erica Harrison) TMG Journal for Media History 25.2 (2022): 1-12 (open access)
"Geschichte der Audiobestände der Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft (RRG) und ihrer Archivierung" (with Friedrich Dethlefs), Rundfunk und Geschichte 47.3-4 (2021): 9-31 (open access)
"Von der Kardex-Kartei zur Einführung der Datenverarbeitungsmaschine: Die archivarische Praxis der ersten 20 Jahre des Deutschen Rundfunkarchivs" (with Corinna Kaiser), Rundfunk und Geschichte, 46.1-2 (2020): 11-25 
"Reconstructing Media Culture: Transnational Perspectives on Radio in Silesia, 1924–1948" (with Joanna Walewska-Choptiany), Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 39.3 (2019): 439-478 (open access)
"Radio Documents: Broadcasting, Sound Archiving, and the Rise of Radio Studies in Interwar Germany" Technology and Culture 60.2 (2019): 96-128 (open access)
"Listening to the Archive: Sound Data in the Humanities and Sciences" (with Viktoria Tkaczyk), Technology and Culture 60.2 (2019): 1-13 (open access)

> Conference / Workshop Organisation (selection)

Co-organiser, Sound and AI in Cultural Industries series, May-September 2024, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam
Co-organiser, Historical Traces of European Radio Archives, 1930-1960, 28-29 Oct. 2021, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam
Co-organiser, Entanglements of Race, Sound and the Archive: Coloniality and the Globalised Present, 9 Dec. 2018, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam [see review here]
Co-organiser, Urban Valorisation - Urban Cultures, Local Histories, and Redevelopment Agendas, 18 May 2018, University of Amsterdam and Amsterdam Museum, Amsterdam
Co-organiser, Urban World-Making, 1-2 Jun. 2017, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam 
Co-organiser, Listening to the Archive: Histories of Sound Data in the Humanities and Sciences, 11-13 Feb. 2016, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam 
Co-organiser, Music, Voice and Orality in Performance History, 12 Jun. 2015, Amsterdam Centre for Heritage and Identity, Amsterdam
Co-organiser, Sound Signatures - Summer and Winter Schools Part I: “Space, Objects and Embodied Practices,” 13-17 Jan. 2014, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam; Part II: “Epistemologies and the Order of Sound,” 18-22 Aug. 2014, NYU Center / Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin [see review here and here]

Department of Media Studies, UvA

For the academic year 2024-25, I will (co)teach the following courses: Archives & Archiving, Infrastructures & Networks, Global Memory and Media, and BA thesis seminar. 

MA
RMA tutorial, Material Cities, 2023-24
RMA tutorial More-than-Human Cities, 2022-23 
RMA tutorial (Post)Pandemic Urbanism, 2020-21, 2021-22. 
Core course Collection and Collection Management, 2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-20
Elective course Visualising the Street, 2016-17
Core course Research Practices in Media Studies, 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19
Elective course Amsterdam& Creative Urbanism, 2015-16 
Core course Access & Reuse (MA Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image), 2015-16 
Elective course Curating the Moving Image, 2014-15 
RMA tutorial Sound Media, Sound Aesthetics: 2010-11, 2012-13
Research seminar Tuning In: Sound in Contemporary Television Practice: 2009-2010, 2010-2011, 2011-12

BA
Elective course Postcolonial Media Studies, 2017-18, 2018-19
Core Module Media Culture in Transformation, 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19
Elective course Sound Cultures: 2016-17
Core module Methoden voor Media-analyse (coordination, lectures): 2012-13, 2013-14, 2014-15, 2015-16
Core module Televisieanalyse (coordination, lectures and tutorials): 2012-13, 2013-14, 2014-15
Elective course Visual Culture, History and Modernity in Twentieth-Century Germany  (German minor program, with Natalie Scholz): 2012-13
Elective course Sound Cultures: 2012-13, 2013-14, 2015-16, 2016-17
Core module Media, Culture and Identity (coordination, lectures and tutorials): 2009-2010, 2010-2011, 2011-2012
Core module Analyse en Methode TV en Populaire Cultuur (coordination,lectures and tutorials): 2009-2010, 2010-2011, 2011-2012
Core module Hedendaagse Mediacultuur: werkgroep televisie (tutorials): 2009-10
BA-Thesis module Sound in Non-Fiction Film and Television: 2006-2007

Guest lectures & masterclasses (selection)

Block seminar, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Jan. 2024: “Media Archives: Politics, Aesthetics, Materiality” [intensive seminar]
Block seminar, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Dec. 2018- Jan. 2019: “Media Archives: Politics, Aesthetics, Materiality” [intensive seminar]
Max Planck Institute for Religious and Cultural Diversity, Göttingen, 20 Feb. 2018: “Explorations in Sound: Theory and Methods” [one-day skills workshop]
Masterclass, University of Wrocław, 16-17 Oct. 2017: “How to Study Past and Present Soundscapes?” [two sessions]
Guest lecture BA Art Science / Sonology, Royal Conservatorium of Music, The Hague, 22 Mar. 2017: “Sound Studies meets Media Studies” 
Masterclass, PhD summer institute [sic!], Northwestern University/University of Cologne, 30. Aug. 2016, "Signature Sounds"
Masterclass, Goethe University Frankfurt, 2 Nov. 2015, "Sonic Heritage and the Politics of Archiving" 
MA elective "Music and Film," MA Musicology, University of Amsterdam, 26. Nov 2013, "Sound and Music in the New German Cinema"
MA Artistic Research, Royal Academy of Arts, The Hague, 1-22 Nov. 2011. Four lectures / workshops
MA Interior Architecture, Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam, 30 May 2011, "Aural Architecture"
MA Artistic Research, Royal Academy of Arts, The Hague, 16 May 2011, "Sound, Technology and Urban Space"