The Value of Listening

Podcast
by Thomas Burkhalter

Charles Hirschkind, author of the book The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics, talks about Cassette Sermons, YouTube-Clips and the value of Listening in Egypt. With a Quran recitation by Abdul Basit Abd us-Samad, a Nasheed by Imad Rami, and field recordings by Seth Ayyaz.

Check this post by Charles Hirschkind on the Egypt Demonstrations of 2011.

Sheikh Abdul Basit Abd us-Samad

This Podcast was produced for the project Global Prayers.

Biography

Thomas Burkhalter, PhD, is an anthropologist, multidisciplinary artist, and writer from Bern, Switzerland. He is the founder and director of Norient and the Norient Festival. Burkhalter has co-directed documentary films, including Contradict (Berner Filmpreis 2020, Al-Jazeera Witness), and created AV/theatre performances. He is the author and co-editor of several books, such as Local Music Scenes and Globalization: Transnational Platforms in Beirut (Routledge) and The Arab Avant Garde: Musical Innovation in the Middle East (Wesleyan University Press). His experimental radio feature, Gqom Edits – A Durban Visit, was nominated for the Prix Europa in 2017. Burkhalter teaches regularly at universities, leads workshops for arts institutions, and, since 2022, has produced the Norient Mixtape for Swiss National Radio SRF3. Currently, Burkhalter's focus lies on his new music/AV duo, Melodies In My Head, and the podcast Long Take: Life as an Artist. Burkhalter’s work combines personal and global perspectives, often in close collaboration with artists and thinkers from across the world. Follow him on Instagram, Research Gate, Academia.edu, Bandcamp, Spotify, or Meta.

Published on April 11, 2011

Last updated on April 02, 2024

Topics

Listening
Religion
Soundscape
All Topics
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