Axel Volmar

Axel Volmar is a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Art History and Communication Studies at McGill University, specializing in the historical epistemology of auditory practices within scientific contexts. His research critically examines how listening skills, acoustic instruments, and audio technologies were cultivated to produce and assess scientific data across disciplines including medicine (stethoscope), military psychology (sound ranging and sonar), and nuclear physics (Geiger counter).

Volmar's research interests focus on the history of scientific listening after 1800, exploring the relationship between data, media technologies, and the senses within auditory scientific culture. His work investigates the transition from listening to physical events to the analysis of virtual or sonified sound events derived from digital data structures. He examines how sensory practices shaped scientific knowledge production, particularly how the ear was used to construct knowledge from observations and scientific data through auditory display.

His publications reveal a consistent focus on auditory data analysis, historical soundscapes, and the epistemological dimensions of listening in scientific practice. Volmar's work demonstrates how auditory practices evolved from direct physical listening to increasingly mediated and virtual forms of sound analysis, reflecting broader technological and methodological shifts in scientific practice throughout the twentieth century.

• Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship

Volmar serves as a member of the international research network 'Auditory Knowledge in Transition: An Epistemic History of Listening in Modernity' funded by the German Research Foundation. His current research project critically reflects on data practices in relation to sensory practices within the history of science, challenging the visual bias in scientific knowledge production by examining the historical role of auditory practices.

His scholarly work connects historical epistemology with sound studies, examining case studies from natural and life sciences to demonstrate a major shift in scientific listening practices during the twentieth century.