Hello all. The following came through my inbox; I don't know if the book
described below is actually any good, but the subject looks like it might
interest some list members.
-i
The sounds of science
Copyright =A9 2003
Christian Science Monitor Service
By Ruth Walker
(January 16, 2003 12:49 p.m. EST) - The ears have it.
Forget what you think you know about ours being a visual culture, in
which sight is the privileged sense.
Two thoughtful new discussions of the culture of listening - of what =
our
modern world sounds like, and what we listen for and hear - make a strong c=
ase
for the primacy of ears. And each further suggests that our experience of o=
ur
aural environment - in which sound, like light, heat, or water, can be turn=
ed
on or off with the flick of a switch - is a hallmark of modernity.
The aural experiences of yore were often communal - a congregation
listening to a sermon or a choir, or an audience listening to a play. They
happened in a specific time and place, and when they were over, they were o=
ver.
Anyone who was wool-gathering during the second act simply missed it. Perio=
d.
Nowadays, however, we have a soundscape that is as much a "built
environment" as is a city skyline. But the myriad forms of sound recording =
and
amplification make it a fragmented soundscape. Instead of an audience that,=
as
one, laughs or cries or sits enraptured, we have collections of individual
auditors, each with his or her own headset. This fragmentation is like simi=
lar
phenomena in other modern media and art forms - such as flashbacks that
cinemagoers once had to learn to "read," or photo montage and
stream-of-consciousness literature.
And indeed, in "The Audible Past," Jonathan Sterne argues that ears h=
ad
to cope with this fragmentation first: "Even if sight is in some ways the
privileged sense in European philosophical discourse since the Enlightenmen=
t,
it is fallacious to think that sight alone or its supposed difference from
hearing explains modernity.... Modern ways of hearing prefigured modern way=
s of
seeing."
Full text
http://www.nandotimes.com/healthscience/story/720883p-5285582c.html
The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction
by Jonathan Sterne
Paperback: 448 pages
Publisher: Duke Univ Pr (Txt); ; (January 2003)
AMAZON - US
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/082233013X/darwinanddarwini
AMAZON - UK
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/082233013X/humannaturecom
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
The Audible Past explores the cultural origins of sound reproduction. It
describes a distinctive sound culture that gave birth to the sound recordin=
g
and transmission devices so ubiquitous in modern life. With an ear for the
unexpected, scholar and musician Jonathan Sterne uses the technological and
cultural precursors of telephony, phonography, and radio as an entry point =
into
a history of sound in its own right. Sterne studies the constantly shifting
boundary between phenomena organized as "sound" and "not sound." In The Aud=
ible
Past, this history crisscrosses the liminal regions between bodies and
machines, originals and copies, nature and culture, and life and death.
Blending cultural studies and the history of communication technology, Ster=
ne
follows modern sound technologies back through a historical labyrinth. Alon=
g
the way, he encounters capitalists and inventors, musicians and philosopher=
s,
embalmers and grave-robbers, doctors and patients, Deaf children and their
teachers, professionals and hobbyists, folklorists and tribal singers. The
Audible Past tracks the connections between the history of sound and the
defining features of modernity: from developments in medicine, physics, and
philosophy to the tumultuous shifts of industrial capitalism, colonialism,
urbanization, modern technology, and the rise of a new middle class.
A provocative history of sound, The Audible Past challenges theoretical
commonplaces such as the philosophical privilege of the speaking subject, t=
he
visual bias in theories of modernity, and static descriptions of nature. It
will interest those in cultural studies, media and communication studies, t=
he
new musicology, and the history of technology.
>From the Publisher
"Jonathan Sterne's The Audible Past boldly stakes out a largely neglected b=
ut
important topic, the history of sound in modern life."-John Durham Peters,
author of Speaking into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication
"Jonathan Sterne confronts what is certainly the most challenging topic in =
the
study of auditory culture-what happened when modern technologies came crash=
ing
into ways of sound making, communicating and listening-with outstanding
results. Through disciplined arguments bolstered by plenty of original
research, and with refreshing critiques of many cherished notions, The Audi=
ble
Past forms a basis from which to address central questions of communication
studies, musicology and music history, film sound and media studies, percep=
tion
and culture, all those areas where listening and sound impinge upon cultura=
l
history and theory."-Douglas Kahn, author of Noise, Water, Meat: A History =
of
Sound in the Arts
"Jonathan Sterne's The Audible Past has come along to set the record straig=
ht
on the cultural origins of sounds and systems, machines and the mechanisms =
of
culture. He's come here to give us the lowdown on how the technology evolve=
d.
Think of the book as a kind of sonic map of the origins of the way we liste=
n to
things around us, as a primer for the sonically perplexed."-Paul D. Miller
a.k.a. DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid
About the Author
Jonathan Sterne teaches in the Department of Communication and the Program =
for
Cultural Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. He writes about media,
technology, and the politics of culture, and is codirector of the online
magazine Bad Subjects: Political Education for Everyday Life.
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