Vibrational knowing: Listening for an eighteenth-century Atlantic world

This essay positions seismic vibration at the centre of early modern imaginings of a vast and interconnected Atlantic world. Although transoceanic exchange of flora and fauna has received extensive scholarly attention, the circulation of acoustic knowledge has been largely overlooked. Focusing on eighteenth-century accounts, this study examines how earthquakes – natural phenomena more often heard and felt rather than seen – challenged ocularcentric models of perception by privileging vibrational epistemologies grounded in bodily sensation and auditory perception. Drawing on eighteenth-century texts that collapsed distinctions between sound, movement, and destruction, I argue that seismic listening practices contributed to early modern conceptions of the Atlantic world as an interconnected and resonant space. In doing so, this article brings historical sound studies into dialogue with Atlantic Studies, offering new ways of examining nature, empire, and embodiment.