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Farewell to Jonathan Sterne
We are very sad to learn of the death of communication scholar Jonathan Sterne, after a long battle with cancer. He was 54 years old. Sterne was James McGill Professor of Culture and Technology at McGill University. He chronicled his illness on his blog and wrote about it in his scholarship as well.
Senior Executive Editor Ken Wissoker says, “We have lost one of our most original and brilliant thinkers. A kind, generous person, and a true genius. Jonathan would take a commonplace understanding, open it up, rethink its history and how it actually worked. The results—whether about sound as culturally and historically specific or our ideas about impairment—changed what thinking was possible. His untimely passing is a deep and unfathomable loss.”
Sterne’s scholarship is concerned with the cultural dimensions of communication technologies, especially their form and role in large-scale societies. He is the author of _The Audible Past_ (2003), a now-classic text that explores the cultural origins of sound reproduction; _MP3: The Meaning of a Format_ (2012), which unpacked the history and meaning of a common audio format; and _Diminished Faculties_(2022), in which he wrote about his own impairment due to a paralyzed vocal chord. Sterne also wrote articles for the Duke University Press journals _differences_ and _Social Text_. He was a co-editor (with Lisa Gitelman) of the book series Sign, Storage, Transmission, which publishes books offering new ways of thinking through the interconnectedness of knowledges, technologies, subjectivities, and cultures. Sterne also contributed chapters to two edited collections published by the Press: _Keywords in Sound_ and _Digital Sound Studies_.
_The Audible Past_ received the 2004 Book of the Year award from the National Communication Association Critical and Cultural Studies Division. MP3 received the 2014 Katherine Singer Kovacs Book Award of Distinction from the Society for Cinema and Media Studies and the Association for Recorded Sound Collections Certificate of Merit in the Best General Research in Recorded Sound category. And _Diminished Faculties_ was the winner of the 2023 Gertrude J. Robinson Book Prize, presented by the Canadian Communication Association.
Sterne received his doctorate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1999. He taught at the University of Pittsburgh before moving to McGill University in 2004. He was a beloved teacher and served as a PhD advisor for dozens of students. He was generous with his time, reviewing many book manuscripts for Duke University Press and other presses and serving on countless committees at his own institution and around the world.
Rob Drew, author of _Unspooled_ , reflects on Sterne’s generosity: “I met Jonathan Sterne in an airport after a conference in the early 2000s. I knew his work but assumed he didn’t know me from Adam. The first words out of his mouth were, ‘Your book rocks!’ I thought, does this guy read everything? Twenty years later I finally had another manuscript and thought it might be good for the Signs Storage Transmission series. I emailed him and within a half hour got an email from Ken Wissoker. I got a contract, but more than that it was Jon’s work on MP3s and music formats that allowed me to develop my whole line on cassettes. Though I never got to work closely with him, I’m another guy out there in cult-stud academe who felt his positive influence.”
Lucas Hilderbrand, author of _The Bars Are Ours_ and _Inherent Vice_ , also benefited from Sterne’s help when publishing with us. “ _The Audible Past_ inspired much of my thinking for my dissertation and first book,” he says. “When I submitted my manuscript, Jonathan was my top request for a reader, and he modeled academic generosity both in his attentive feedback and in inviting conversation by disclosing his identity. He has been a mentor and a model for how to live an intellectual life. He invented fields of thought and shaped lives.”
Executive Editor Courtney Berger worked with Sterne on his latest book, _Diminished Faculties_. She says, “Not only was Jonathan a tremendous scholar, he was a dedicated mentor, friend, and colleague. He drew people into his orbit with his honesty, generosity, and sharp wit. He was eager to share what he knew—about writing, teaching, and navigating academic life—and he was just as eager to learn. I feel lucky to have worked alongside Jonathan, to have learned from him, and to have been his friend.”
Marketing Manager Laura Sell worked with Sterne all three of his books. “Publicists do have favorite authors,” she says, “and Jonathan was one of my favorites. He was gracious and appreciated the people who worked behind-the-scenes on his books. He was also extremely funny and we bonded over a shared love of cats. I’m proud to have had a part in disseminating his important scholarship and feel lucky to have known him personally.”
We send our condolences to Jonathan’s partner, Carrie Rentschler, also a Duke University Press author, and to his family, colleagues, students and friends.
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