New Volume: Sonic Interventions

Edited by Sylvia Miezkowski, Joy Smith, and Marijke de Valck


Sonic Interventions makes a compelling a case for the importance of sound in theorizing literature, subjectivity and culture. Sound is usually understood as our second sense and – as our belief in a visually dominated culture prevails – remains of secondary interest. Western cultures are considered to be predominantly visual, while other societies are thought to place more importance on the acoustic dimension. This volume questions these assumptions by examining how sound differs from, and acts in relationship to, the visual. It moves beyond theoretical dichotomies (between the visual and the sonic, the oral and literature) and, instead, investigates sonic interventions in their often multi-faceted forms. The case studies deal with political appropriations of music and sounds, they explore the poetic use of the sonic in novels and plays, they develop theoretical concepts out of sonic phenomena, and pertain to identity formation and the practice of mixing in hip hop, opera and dancehall sessions. Ultimately, the book brings to the fore what roles sound may play for the formation of gendered identity, for the stabilization or questioning of race as a social category, and the conception of place. Their intricate interventions beckon critical attention and offer rich material for cultural analysis.

Contents
Sylvia MIESZKOWSKI, Joy SMITH and Marijke de VALCK: Sonic Interventions: An Introduction
Resonance – Politics – Resistance
Fred MOTEN: The New International of Rhythmic Feeling(s)
Carolyn BIRDSALL: “Affirmative Resonances” in the City?: Sound, Imagination and Urban Space in Early 1930s Germany
Marisa PARHAM: You Can’t Flow Over This: Ursula Rucker’s Acoustic Illusion
Incantations: Gender and Identity
Mahmut MUTMAN: Reciting: The Voice of the Other
Sylvia MIESZKOWSKI: Disturbing Noises – Haunting Sounds: Don DeLillo’s The Body Artist
Milla TIAINEN: Corporeal Voices, Sexual Differentiations: New Materialist Perspectives on Music, Singing
and Subjectivity
Performing Subjectivity: Literature, Race and Mourning
David COPENHAFER: Invisible Music (Ellison)
Soyica DIGGS: Historicizing the Ghostly Sound of a Ghastly Sight: James Baldwin’s Blues for Mister Charlie
Joy SMITH: Between Orality and Literature: The Alida Folktale in Ellen Ombre’s Short Fiction “Fragments”
Mixing Music: Event, Place and Transculturality
Susanne STEMMLER: “Sonido ciudadísimo”: Black Noise Andalusian Style in Contemporary Spain
Anikó IMRE: Hip Hop Nation and Gender Politics
Julian HENRIQUES: Situating Sound: The Space and Time of the Dancehall Session