Dr Marie Thompson

Professional biography

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.

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.