Jonathan Sterne

Today's cancer crawl, mostly on brains, with a little diversion into hearts at the end. superbon.net/2025/02/05/t...

Today's cancer crawl: some symptom side effect improvement and cat watercolour. superbon.net/2025/01/24/2...

Need a break from today's political news? Have you tried thinking about cancer? This isn't the most fun post--mostly me documenting all the self-experimentation I'm doing just trying to improve breathing, sleep, and swallowing. superbon.net/2025/01/20/2...

Today's cancer crawl: Wile E. Coyote, super genius; or, a trifecta of side effects. superbon.net/2025/01/14/1...

Today's cancer crawl, with me accidentally getting high at work, plus Atul Gawande Being Mortal, and Ivan Illich Medical Nemesis. superbon.net/2025/01/12/1...

Today's cancer crawl collects some helpful suggestions from friends about living solo and dealing with flareups. superbon.net/2025/01/04/4...

Disabled/chronically ill friends: how do you prepare for debilitating flareups or episodes when on your own? I posted about that issue in today's Cancer Crawl, superbon.net/2024/12/29/2...

The latest cancer crawl with met plans and a few small achievements: superbon.net/2024/12/26/2...

Today's cancer crawl, featuring good news for once--the drugs appear to be working. No guarantees but I'm happy to keep going down this path. More details here: superbon.net/2024/12/17/1...

A postscript to Saturday's cancer crawl, but with more vomiting and a wild musical dream: superbon.net/2024/12/16/c...

Yeah it sucks. I should be hang-outable soonish, though, if you're not out on tour.

Today's cancer crawl covering the last week: I've had 1.6 litres of fluid removed, I meditate on the meaning of protein, and MRIs of the head are not good musical experiences. superbon.net/2024/12/14/c...

I've also been blogging the experience over at https//superbon.net and will be posting links to new posts here. The cancer blog has been running on and off since 2009 so if you select the "cancer" category, you get the full narrative if you read from the beginning.

My partner flew out, my local friends have looked after me, and the Radcliffe people have been great. My department even bailed me out of a big bureaucratic task (yes, I'm on leave but you can't TOTALLY abandon your job). I've been doing my physical therapy and rehabbing all I can.

We start me on new drugs. But now my lungs are messed up. I need supplemental oxygen. I'm totally reconditioned for things like walking up stairs. And of course the new meds have side effects.

The shortness of breath gets bad enough that I am hospitalized twice. The second time I go in via ambulance and let me tell you, I have never been sicker. I wind up in the cancer ward, where I'm told my cancer has morphed into "high grade metastatic thyroid cancer BRAF-600 mutation."

Except the concussion symptoms seem to be coming back. Then, I start noticing I'm short of breath. I've had a rare kind of metastatic thyroid cancer for 15 years, and it's been controlled with medication. I had a CT scan August 25th right before I left and my oncologist says "go have a great year."

In late August, I arrive in Cambridge MA to join a group of 50 fellows at the Radcliffe Institute. My partner and I are temporarily living apart because she has the same deal as me but at Stanford for the year. We'll talk every day and visit. No problem, right?

...and it did eventually get better. I still sometimes notice sensitivity to certain kinds of lighting and a touch of hyperacusis, but it's not like it was. All good right? Time to go on a much-needed sabbatical, right? Um....

That evening, I am walking down the street and a branch falls on my head. I felt a little woozy, then fine, then three weeks later the concussion symptoms hit hard. That killed my winter semester. I followed the "exposure therapy" protocol with an osteopath and physical therapist...

As promised, the story of 2024. It begins in December 2023, when, after an ice storm, the trees of Montreal are covered a beautiful sheen of ice. That morning, I sign off as a committee member on a thesis proposal critiquing environmentalists' overemphasis on trees. (1/)

This year I'm not in Montreal, I'm in Cambridge MA at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute. Which is wonderful. Unfortunately, 2024 has been a rough medical year for me, which I'll tell share more about tomorrow.

The Sound Studies Reader The Sound Studies Reader blends recent work that self-consciously describes itself as ‘sound studies’ along with earlier and lesser-known scholarship on sound from across the humanities and social sci...

I also edited the Sound Studies Reader, which is getting a little long in the tooth. I'm signed up to do a second edition but am debating whether I'll be able to do it. www.routledge.com/The-Sound-St...

My third book is Diminished Faculties: A Political Phenomenology of Impairment, which does what it says on the tin--it tries to rethink the concept of impairment. It came out during the pandemic, so can I say that the fatigue chapter was a "sleeper hit"? <rimshot> www.dukeupress.edu/diminished-f...

The conceit of MP3: The Meaning of a Format is that it's a 100-year history of what was then a 19-year-old format. It sets then-contemporary debates about mp3s against a long media history of compression, formatting, and circulation. There is a cat chapter. www.dukeupress.edu/mp3

I'm author of three books. The Audible Past is on the origins of sound reproduction technologies -- telephones, microphones, phonographs, radios. It's part cultural history of technology, part weirdo media theory. You do get exploding corpses in the last chapter. www.dukeupress.edu/the-audible-...

hello friends. People have been kind enough to include me in starter packs, so I guess I should introduce myself. I'm Jonathan. I love cats! I'm disabled. My day job is professor at McGill University where I study the things listed in my profile. I also play music and make sound art. 1/

Media scholars - CFP for Console-ing Passions is out. Consider applying, especially if you haven't been before; it's a great conference!
fmt.gsu.edu/console-ing-...

Cait posing outside with their book

Today is the official publication day for my new book, I Know You Are, but What Am I? On Pee-wee Herman from @UMinnPress. You can pick up a copy here or read the ebook for free: www.upress.umn.edu/978151791828... Get 40% with code MN91270

“Echo chambers I have loved”: AKG BX20; Cooper Time Cube; Eventide H90….

While we’re at it, let’s also have a few words in praise of silos. Otherwise where does the grain get stored?