With his enthusiasm for the Moog synthesizer, as well as his broader affinities for sound, music, and technology, Trevor Pinch has left an important legacy on which East Asian STS may build. In this essay, I offer a retrospective of Pinch’s key contributions to sound studies by drawing specifically on his methodological and conceptual framing of sound within STS. I chart out recent scholarship on the technological study of sound in musical and political contexts across East Asia and explore future directions for what may be described as an East Asian approach to sound studies.
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For over two decades, Trevor Pinch has made a profound impact on the STS community in East Asia. His work, The Golem (Collins and Pinch Citation1993), was translated into Korean, Japanese, and Chinese, becoming a foundational text for students and scholars of East Asia. His lectures in Japan, Taiwan, and Korea, further generated enthusiasm for STS, and his students at Cornell included those who specialized in East Asian science, technology, and medicine. Affectionately called “Pinchy” by his East Asian colleagues (Wu Citation2019), Pinch served on the advisory committee of EASTS and was deeply invested in the success of the journal. His passing in December 2021, then, was a deeply felt loss for members of the East Asian STS community, who considered Pinch as one of their own (Kuo Citation2022).
