Sounding Modernism: Tapping the Oral Archive

[peto, andrea]

CFP: Sounding Modernism: Tapping the Oral Archive (04/29/05; MSA
11/03/05-11/06/05)

Sounding Modernism: Tapping the Oral Archive

There exists today an archive of sound recordings of 20th century
poets reading their own (and others') works that has received very
little critical attention. This may be because this archive survives
in disarray, mostly in university libraries that have not spent the
time to catalogue or promote these recordings. It also may be the
result of what Garrett Stewart has called "phonophobia," a
poststructuralist skepticism of hearing an authentic author behind the
spoken text. Listening to this archive, however, reveals a large and
largely untheorized body of work that begs for analysis in a similar
way as material text has received over the past decade or so in the
work of critics like Jerome McGann and Cary Nelson. 

Panelists might consider the following questions: 

What is the status of these tapes, records, MP3s, and CDs? 
What procedures or standards should be created to "read" them? 
Does audio text tell us something that print text does not? 
Should we regard taped works as new versions, editions, or something
else entirely? What can specific reading styles tell us about
interpretation? Is it possible to create a hermeneutics of vocal
inflection? Should we listen by extracting the "pure" text from the
field of sounds in a recording, or interpret the recording itself,
with all its ambient flecks of noise? What do audiotexts have to say
about the event of the poetry reading itself? 

Please email or send 500-word abstracts and a cover letter including a
brief CV, by April 29th to: 

allison at bard.edu 

or:

Raphael Allison
Bard College / Schafer House
PO Box 5000
Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
12504-5000


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Dr. habil. PETO Andrea

Assistant Professor, Department of Gender Studies
Central European University, 
1051 Budapest Nador utca 9. Hungary
tel: 00 36-(06)- 209 292519
email: petoand at axelero.hu
http://www.nextwave.hu/peto
http://www.ceu.hu/gend/Peto/index.htm

Associate Professor, University of Miskolc,
Director, Equal Opportunity and Gender Studies Center
http://www.miskolcgender.hu
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