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Dr Marie Thompson

profile picture of marie thompson, wearing round framed glasses and stripey red top against a blue background

Profile summary

Professional biography

I joined the Open University as a Lecturer in Popular Music in 2020. Prior to this, I held a position in the University of Lincoln's School of Film and Media, where I taught on Sound and Music Production and Media Studies degree programmes. I gained my PhD in 2014 from Newcastle University's International Centre for Music Studies. I also hold a BA (Hons) in Music/Popular Music and an MA in Musicology from the University of Liverpool.  

Research interests

My main areas of research interest are: 

- Gender, race and auditory culture 

- Musical interventions into pregnancy, reproductive labour and social reproduction 

- Theories of noise and its use as a musical resource 

- Tinnitus, aural difference and musical listening

My monograph Beyond Unwanted Sound: Noise, Affect and Aesthetic Moralism was published by Bloomsbury in 2017, and I am the co-editor of Sound, Music, Affect: Theorizing Sonic Experience (Bloomsbury, 2013). Other recent publications have appeared in Contemporary Music Review, Textual Practice, Women and Music and Parallax. More information about these can be found under the Publications tab. 

I am the Principal Investigator of the AHRC-funded project Tinnitus, Auditory Knowledge and the Arts, which explores how the arts might help to enrich understandings of tinnitus and the diverse ways it affects listeners. I am also the co-founder (with Annie Goh) of Sonic Cyberfeminisms, an ongoing project that critically and creatively interrogates the relationship between gender, sound, technology and feminist practice.  

 My research has been presented internationally in various academic and public forums, including on BBC Radio 4's Thinking Allowed; at music festivals including CTM (Berlin), MUTEK (Montreal), DICE (Berlin) and Noiseexistance (Hamburg); at cultural institutions including the British Library, Tate Liverpool and the ICA; and as keynote presentations for the Punk Scholars Network, The Future Sound of Pop Music conference and for Capacious: Affect Inquiry/Making Space conference.  I will be delivering the keynote Peter le Huray lecture at the Royal Musical Association’s 2020 Annual Conference.

Teaching interests

My teaching interests concern the cultural study of music. I have been the module chair of A874: MA Music Part 2 and a member of the module team for Central Questions in the Study of Music. I was the lead author of the short course AXS006: Dolly Parton: Music, Identity and Culture , which introduces Parton and her music in relation to various social, cultural and musical issues. I also produced teaching materials on the politics of sound systems for AXS005: Sound Systems in Popular Music: from Jamacian Dub to Stadium Rock. 

I am currently leading a FASSTEST teaching scholarship project concerned with the ‘white racial frame’ in music studies. This has explored how issues relating to whiteness, race and colonialism can be more effectively incorporated into current Music teaching materials at the Open University.

 

 

Publications

Introduction: The aesthetics of tinnitus (2024-01-22)
Thompson, Marie
The Senses and Society ((early access))


Mapping tinnitus (2024)
Thompson, Marie
The Senses and Society ((Early Access))


"Is your baby getting enough music?" Musical interventions into gestational labor (2022)
Drott, Eric and Thompson, Marie
Women and Music: a Journal of Gender and Culture, 26 (pp. 125-147)


‘Your Womb, the Perfect Classroom’: Prenatal Sound Systems and Uterine Audiophilia (2021-03-01)
Thompson, Marie
Feminist Review, 127(1) (pp. 73-89)


Sonic Cyberfeminisms: Introduction (2021-03-01)
Goh, Annie and Thompson, Marie
Feminist Review, 127(1) (pp. 1-12)


Sounding the Arcane: Contemporary Music, Gender and Reproduction (2020-09)
Thompson, Marie
Contemporary Music Review, 39(2) (pp. 273-292)


Spinoza and musical power (2019)
Thompson, Marie
Textual Practice, 33(5) (pp. 803-820)


Whiteness and the Ontological Turn in Sound Studies (2017)
Thompson, Marie
Parallax, 23(3) (pp. 266-282)


To soothe or remove? Affect, revanchism and the weaponized use of classical music (2017)
Thompson, Marie
Communication and the Public, 2(4) (pp. 272-283)


Feminised Noise and the ‘Dotted Line’ of Sonic Experimentalism (2016)
Thompson, Marie
Contemporary Music Review, 35(1) (pp. 85-101)


Productive Parasites: Thinking of Noise as Affect (2012-12-03)
Thompson, Marie
Cultural Studies Review, 18(3) (pp. 13-35)


Beyond Unwanted Sound: Noise, Affect and Aesthetic Moralism (2017-02-09)
Thompson, Marie
ISBN : 9781501313301 | Publisher : Bloomsbury | Published : New York


A Conversation on Race, Sound, and the Im/possibility of Decolonised Listening (2022-05-27)
Lee, Peggy Kyoungwon; Oliveira, Pedro; Osman, Shanti Suki and Thompson, Marie
In: Ismaiel-Wendt, Johannes Salim and Schoon, Andi eds. Postcolonial Repercussions: On Sound Ontologies and Decolonised Listening. Sound Studies (pp. 45-58)
Publisher : transcript Verlag | Published : Bielefeld


Sonic Feminisms: Doing Gender in Neoliberal Times (2020-12-10)
Thompson, Marie
In: Bull, Michael and Corbussen, Marcel eds. The Bloomsbury Handbook of Sonic Methodologies
ISBN : 9781501338779 | Publisher : Bloomsbury


Sound Studies (2020)
Thompson, Marie
In: van Orden, Kate ed. Music
Publisher : Oxford Bibliographies


Gendered sound (2018-10-29)
Thompson, Marie
In: Bull, Michael ed. The Routledge Companion to Sound Studies. Routledge Media and Cultural Studies Companions (pp. 108-117)
ISBN : 978-1-138-8514-3 | Publisher : Routledge | Published : Abingdon


Experimental music and the question of what can a body do? (2017)
Thompson, Marie
In: Moisala, Pirkko; Leppänen, Taru; Tiainen, Milla and Väätäinen, Hanna eds. Musical Encounters with Deleuze and Guattari (pp. 149-168)
ISBN : 9781501316753 | Publisher : Bloomsbury


Sound, Music, Affect: Theorizing Sonic Experience (2013-02-28)
Thompson, Marie and Biddle, Ian eds.
ISBN : 9781441114679 | Publisher : Bloomsbury | Published : New York