The sound of higher education: sensuous epistemologies and the mess of knowing

The soundscape of higher education is changing. The changes reflect an age of managerialism and an age of uncertainty. These changes call on us to give up on some of the ways we have understood knowledge in the past and prompt us to find news ways of recognizing and understanding the complexities facing higher education research. This paper explores the possibilities opened up by perceptions of higher education gained through the senses, especially through the auditory sense. Taking the case of modern languages, it traces some of the contours of the soundscape of higher education—its grief and its diversity.