Listening Yet To Come: Research Article Titles for Listening

Inspired by the Bureau for Listening’s Attunement Board, we’ve compiled a list of imagined titles for research articles on the art and science of listening – titles for research we wish existed; that are not-yet. These suggestions for research articles are designed to spark curiosity, foster new waves of research and imaginations, and invite readers to envision the many possibilities of listening yet to be explored. We hope this list inspires not only the beginnings of research but also encourages others to dream up even more paths for essential, yet still-unrealized, studies on/for/with the subject and practice of listening.

Listening in Crisis: The Role of Attunement in Disaster Recovery and Community Healing

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Listening to the Cosmos: A Grand Symphony of Black Holes, Neutron Stars, and the Birth of Galaxies

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The Silent Chorus: How Listening to Dark Matter Could Unlock the Mysteries of the Universe

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Listening Otherwise: Sound as a Pathway to Fluid and Non-Binary Ways of Knowing

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The Big Listening Lie: A Uncovering of Listening as Conspiracy Theory

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The Science of Silence: How Deep Listening Enhances Cognitive Health and Longevity

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When Algorithms Listen: AI, Ethics, and the Future of Machine-Mediated Conversations

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Infrasonic Lament: Listening for the Earth’s Silent Sorrows Beneath the Range of Human Hearing

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Sound as Gesture: Investigating the Relationship Between Listening and Physicality in Performance Practices

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The Sound of Extinction: Can We Reconstruct Lost Species’ Vocalizations to Heal Ecosystems?

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Slow Listening: Nurturing an Awareness In, Rather Than Of, Process

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Telepathic Listening: How Quantum Entanglement Could Enable Instantaneous Communication Across Continents

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Sonic Rituals of Resistance: Listening as a Practice of Radical Empathy in Protest Movements

Listening to the Land: Indigenous Soundscapes and Environmental Policy

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Corporeal Listening: Re-learning to Hear the Body’s Internal Sonics as Pathways to Health

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Collaborative Ears: Listening as Co-Creation in Transdisciplinary Artistic Practices

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The Sound of Absence: Mapping Sonic Signatures in the Anthropocene’s Ghost Landscapes

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Sonic Kinship: Resonating with Ancestral Sounds to Restore Communal Memory

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Listening in Zero Gravity: How Sound Behaves and Communicates in the Vacuum of Space

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The Evolving Ear: How Future Biologies Might Tune Humans to Planetary Soundscapes

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Cracks in Silence: How the Unheard Voices of Inanimate Worlds Shape Our Understanding of Existence

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Listening to the Dead: Rediscovering Lost Wisdoms in Sonic Histories of Forgotten Ancestors

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From Noise to Nuance: Rewiring Corporate Culture through Listening Workshops

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Reverberations of the Unsaid: Artistic Practices in Listening to Subconscious Thoughts Through Sound

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Eavesdropping on History: How Listening Uncovered Forgotten Narratives in Archival Research

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The Song of Decay: Acoustic Ecologies and the Art of Listening to Slow Violence

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BioSymphony: A New Paradigm for Ecological Sounding and Listening

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Sound Against Sound: Using Sonic Resonance as a Method to Disrupt Surveillance and Control

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Listening into Discomfort: How Staying with the Trouble of Physical and Emotional

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Discomfort Opens New Modes of Being

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The Frequency of Time: Can We Listen to the Past through the Vibrations of Historical Artifacts?

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Emotional Frequencies: Can Human Emotions Be Translated into Audible Signals?

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Oscillations of Awe: When Listening Becomes a Portal to Wonder Beyond Language

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The Infinite Eardrum: Listening Beyond Mortality in an Age of Digital Consciousness

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Dissolving the Auditory Ego: How Listening Without Interpretation Opens New Realms of Experience

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Sonic Rights to the City: Acoustic Justice and the Redistribution of Auditory Access in Public Life

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Queering the Ear: Listening as a Radical Act of Disrupting Normative Soundscapes

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The Sound of the Invisible: Listening as a Radical Act of Witnessing the Unheard

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Whispers of Wisdom: Oral Traditions and the Unwritten History of Listening Practices

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Quantum Listening: Engaging with the Sound of Uncertainty and Probabilistic Waves

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The Geometry of Listening: Uncovering How Space Itself Stores and Transmits Sound Waves Across Millennia

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The Sound of Time Collapsing: How to Listen to Entropy and Other Invisible Decay Processes

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Temporal Soundscapes: Attuning to the Audible Past, Present, and Future of Time Travel

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The Hollow Chorus: How Listening to Nothingness Can Reveal Hidden Dimensions of Reality

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Choreographed Soundscapes: Merging Dance and Listening in Interactive, Motion-Activated Performances

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Listening to the Future: How Acoustic Signals from Distant Galaxies Can Reveal Interstellar Communication

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Reclaiming the Sonic Commons: How Listening Can Reorient Power Dynamics in Shared Urban Spaces

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Resonant Cities: A Study of Urban Noise and the Politics of Collective Listening

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AI Listening: Machine Learning based on Listening-Data-Methodologies

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The Sound of Consent: How Listening Can Reframe Relationships of Power and Care

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Planetary Heartbeats: Synchronizing Human Emotions with Earth’s Rhythmic Pulses

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Listening as Liberation: How Attunement Can Open Radical Possibilities for Being in the World

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The Sound of Silence Breaking: Listening as Witnessing, Healing, and Reclamation in Post-Conflict Zones

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Listening as Sanctuary: Crafting Sonic Safe Spaces through Practices of Acoustic Refuge

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Reorienting the Sonic Self: Acoustic Justice as a Practice of Listening for Personal and Collective Liberation

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The Sound of Belonging: Listening as an Act of Reorienting Toward Communal Agency and Justice

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Silenced by Sound: The Sociopolitical Control of Sonic Space in Contemporary Culture

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The Queer Frequency: Exploring Non-Normative Soundscapes and the Politics of the Unheard

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Listening as Alchemy: Transmuting Silence into Knowledge through Vibrational Attunement

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The Sound of Thoughts: Mapping the Brain’s Acoustic Output in Cognitive Processing

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The Politics of Quietude: How Silence and Sound Shape Marginalized Spaces and Enable Acts of Reorientation

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Spectral Soundscapes: Creating Auditory Archives for Future Ghost Species in Biodiversity Conservation

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Unheard Desires: Listening as a Practice of Reclaiming Queer Histories and Silenced Voices

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Symphonies of the Soil: Listening to Earth’s Microorganisms in Pursuit of Biodiversity Preservation

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Echoes of Eternity: Soundscapes as Portals to Sacred, Infinite, and Unseen Dimensions

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The Ecology of Echoes: Listening as a Pathway to Mutual Becoming in Multispecies Worlds

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Sonic Rituals of Resistance: Listening as a Practice of Radical Empathy in Protest Movements

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Composing for the Unheard: An Artistic Study on Imaginary Instruments and Inaudible Frequencies

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AI Listening: Machine Learning based on Listening-Data-Methodologies

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Listening in the Dark: Exploring Sound-Based Performance in Complete Sensory Deprivation

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Vibrational Politics: How Listening to Earth’s Frequencies Could Reshape Environmental Justice

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Silent Revolutions: How Listening-Driven Leadership Transformed Governance Models

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The Sound of the Invisible: Listening as a Radical Act of Witnessing the Unheard

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Eavesdropping on History: How Listening Uncovered Forgotten Narratives in Archival Research

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BioSymphony: A New Paradigm for Ecological Sounding and Listening

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Listening to the Land: Indigenous Soundscapes and Environmental Policy

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Listening as Alchemy: Transmuting Silence into Knowledge through Vibrational Attunement

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The Frequency of Time: Can We Listen to the Past through the Vibrations of Historical Artifacts?

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Sonic Rituals of Resistance: Listening as a Practice of Radical Empathy in Protest Movements

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Listening in Zero Gravity: How Sound Behaves and Communicates in the Vacuum of Space

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The Silent Chorus: How Listening to Dark Matter Could Unlock the Mysteries of the Universe

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The Hollow Chorus: How Listening to Nothingness Can Reveal Hidden Dimensions of Reality

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Corporeal Listening: Re-learning to Hear the Body’s Internal Sonics as Pathways to Health

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Reverberations of the Unsaid: Artistic Practices in Listening to Subconscious Thoughts Through Sound

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The Sound of Thoughts: Mapping the Brain’s Acoustic Output in Cognitive Processing

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The Rhythm of Aging: Can We Reverse Time by Tuning Into Cellular Sounds?

Afterthought: The Practice of Imagining Research

To produce imaginary research articles is, in itself, an act of listening—listening to the unspoken possibilities that float just beneath the surface of our collective knowledge. It is a form of attentiveness to what is yet to be heard, a delicate tuning into the silence between questions and answers, between the known and the unknown. In crafting these titles, we listen not only to the pulse of contemporary inquiry but to the echoes of futures waiting to emerge, to the murmurs of concepts yet to be articulated. This imaginative act invites us to attune our minds to the potential of what is missing, urging us to stretch beyond the boundaries of current thought and to listen for the ideas that are still whispering, just out of reach, on the horizon of understanding. It is in these imagined spaces that new realms of possibility are born—where listening becomes a generative force, not just for research, but for a new way of being in the world.

In a time of profound political and ecological crisis, the need for ‘Not-Yetness’ becomes ever more urgent. The questions we ask today must be open to the unknowns we cannot yet grasp, to the silences that we have yet to articulate. To truly listen is to embrace what is not yet present in our systems of knowledge, to attune to what will remain distant and silent, to allow ourselves to dwell in the liminal, the unformed, the unfinished, and voiceless. In that ‘Not-Yetness,’ lies potential; a fertile space for disorientation and reorientation—a crucial shift in how we relate to the world, to others, and to ourselves. The work of reorientation is a work of listening not only to what is already visible and knowable, but to what is ignored, or made invisible by conditioning structures of power and knowledge.

 

Listening, in this sense, becomes a form of resistance—a refusal to accept and follow the established narratives and methodologies that have led to our present crisis. It is an invitation to listen to the voices and perspectives that have been suppressed, to the earth’s quiet calls for justice, and to the planet’s cries for care. In imagining research that has not yet been realized, we resist the inertia of what has always been known and open ourselves to new forms of inquiry, while also pointing to loud gaps in our current knowledge. This is research not just as an academic endeavor but as a radical act of care and transformation. A commitment to reimagine the very systems through which we know the world; what in relation in listening can not even be researched? — maybe we need to be nurturing not-knowing as a valid and valued position for those that listen; for the researchers, the artists and others alike.

 

In this work of imagining research, we act as witnesses to what could be and is not, exercised through the tradition and poetic of academic research titles. It is a call to listen.

Part of this project was published in ‘Anthology for Listening Vol. II’, 2024.