Research Visit to Cambridge Digital Humanities

Xsara Helmi will be a visiting student at Cambridge Digital Humanities at the University of Cambridge during Michaelmas term 2026. Her visit will be overseen by Prof. John L. Drever to further develop her research within the Cambridge Digital Humanities community.

Her project, Hospital Noises: The Hidden Orchestra of Hospital Machines. Sonic Autobiography and Autistic Listening — A Transdisciplinary Arts-Based Research Inquiry This project explores autistic auditory experience within hospital environments through a phenomenological, transdisciplinary arts-based research framework, contributing to aural diversity. It combines ward-based field recordings of hospital machine sounds, autoethnographic narrative, staff interviews, and intuitive music improvisation informed by Husserl’s epoché and Merleau-Ponty’s embodied perception.

LAURA (The Leverhulme Trust Aural Diversity Research Doc Hub) is co-directed by Prof. Bill Davies (University of Salford) and Prof. John L. Drever (University of Cambridge), and supports interdisciplinary research across sound, aural diversity, and listening.