Maurice Windleburn received his PhD in Musicology from the University of Melbourne and is a fellow of the Society of Fellows in the Humanities at the University of Hong Kong. His current research examines the sonic, vibratory, or musical cosmologies theorised by philosophers, occultists, scientists and critics in modernist France (1880-1940), and the effects that these theories had on music and other artforms in the same period. In exploring past worldviews that metaphysically privilege sound (or adjacent concepts like music, rhythm, resonance, and vibration), Windleburn will provide a richer historical context for the ‘sonic ontologies’ currently circulating in sound studies and continental philosophy.

In addition to his present focus, Windleburn retains a research interest in contemporary avant-garde music, having published his first book, John Zorn’s File Card Works: Hypertextual Intermediality in Composition and Analysis, with Routledge, implementing a methodology reliant on music semiotics and intermedia studies. He has published his work in several musicological and interdisciplinary journals, including Tempo and Organised Sound, and has contributed chapters to edited volumes on music and new media, and music philosophy.