Offers a study of sounds that aims to write the resonance and response they call for. This book critiques on the existing models field of sound studies and draw attention to sound as an object of study that solicits a humanistic approach encompassing many types of sounds.

"Sounds is a call to criticism, an invocation that compels us or enables us to take a very different approach not so much to sound studies but rather to the work of criticism itself. The work consists of amplifying sonic aspects of the texts under consideration, aspects which barely exist yet are inescapably present, such that they might allow us to reconsider the works under consideration from a different perspective entirely."—Greg Hainge, author of Noise Matters: Towards an Ontology of Noise "Sounds takes on a great significance as a theoretical practice that is also a foundation around which the field of sound studies can coalesce. Each chapter teases out political significance from the study of sound, offering novel approaches to fundamental questions about the relationships of human beings to themselves, to other humans, and to nonhuman animals. The sensitive readings of diverse individual texts are highly original and edifying."—Aden Evens, author of Sound Ideas: Music, Machines, and Experience "This latest installment of John Mowitt’s impressive work on sounds—as they appear in literature, philosophy, cinema, music, and other cultural forms—exemplifies the sophistication of truly interdisciplinary humanistic scholarship. An inspiringly learned and nuanced work."—Rey Chow, author of Entanglements, or Transmedial Thinking about Capture