Afro-philo-sonic Fictions: Black Sound Studies after the Millennium

This essay reviews two recent publications in the area of black music and sound studies—Julian Henriques's Sonic Bodies: Reggae Sound Systems, Performance Techniques, and Ways of Knowing (2011) and Alexander G. Weheliye's Phonographies: Grooves in Sonic Afro-Modernity (2005)—taking particular note of the role of critical theory, as well as of gender and sexuality, in the contemporary literature.