CFP: Sounding Modernism: Tapping the Oral Archive (4/29/05; MSA, 11/3/05-11/6/05)

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

         ==========================================================
              From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List
                        CFP_at_english.upenn.edu
                         Full Information at
                     http://cfp.english.upenn.edu
         or write Jennifer Higginbotham: higginbj_at_english.upenn.edu
         ==========================================================
Received on Wed Apr 20 2005 - 08:39:48 EDT