Sonic Modernity
Representing Sound in Literature, Culture and the Arts
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Edinburgh University Press
Published:14th Mar '13
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
In this thoughtful and engaging study, Sam Halliday reveals the many roles and forms of sound in modernism. Drawing on a wealth of texts and thinkers, the book shows the distinctive nature of sonic cultures in modernity. Arguing that these cultures are not reducible to sound alone, the book further shows that these encompass representations of sound in 'other' media: especially literature; but also, cinema and painting. Figures discussed include canonical writers such as Joyce, Richardson, and Woolf; relatively neglected writers such as Henry Roth and Bryher; and a whole host of musicians, artists, and other commentators, including Wagner, Schoenberg, Kandinsky, Adorno, and Benjamin. Conceptually as well as topically diverse, the book engages issues such as city noise and 'foreign' accents, representations of sound in 'silent' cinema, the relationship of music to language, and the effects of technology on sonic production and reception.
... a truly impressive and interdisciplinary overview of the subject. -- CHRISTIN HOENE, Humboldt University of Berlin * Music and Letters, vol 17, no 2 *
Sam Halliday’s fascinating account of sonic modernity offers a distinctively new terrain for modernist studies. Wide-ranging and superbly well-informed, his book will make attentive listeners of us all. * Peter Nicholls, Professor of English, New York University *
One of the most exciting accounts of modernism to have appeared for some time, Sonic Modernity is a vibrant panorama of a book, underwritten with a powerful conceptual sensibility. Addressing a wide array of writers, composers, and other figures, this study offers a refreshed and wholly original inquiry into the unexpected reaches of modernist ideas. * Professor Ian F. A. Bell, Keele University *
Conceptually expansive and revealingly oxymoronic, Sam Halliday's exploration of the effect of technological development on modernism's relationship with sound is thorough and illuminating. -- Serena Gosden * TLS *
ISBN: 9780748627615
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 476g
224 pages