Search results for ""Author James A. Steintrager""

Book SynopsisJames A. Steintrager received his M.A. in French and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Columbia University. He teaches English and comparative literature at the University of California, Irvine. He has published articles and essays on Enlightenment philosophy, poststructuralist theory, and libertine fiction, and is now writing a study on pleasure as a social system.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe contributors to this ambitious and wide-ranging collection explore sound as an object, sound studies as a discipline, and the limits of sonic objectivity.Trade Review"The carefully curated sequence of essays and chapters makes a significant contribution to the field of sound studies." -- Aurelio Cianciotta * Neural *"Like the field of sound studies, the essays collected here are disciplinarily difficult to define or contain.… The text may well contribute to the creation of an audience through the challenges it presents. This volume moves the discussion of sound forward by recognizing its aesthetic and ideological richness as well as its ontological instability. As a whole, Sound Objects demonstrates the potential for engagement with sound to reverberate more deeply across artistic, aesthetic, and scholarly landscapes, as well as the promise of richness that comes from examining our basic assumptions." -- Maribeth Clark * Notes *"Sound Objects provides readers with a deepened exploration of the sonic field while maintaining cross-disciplinary conversations to help sound studies further congeal as an integrated field. . . . The collection will also resonate with a wide readership through the range of represented experiences of sound with which readers will identify." -- Kate Galloway * MUSICultures *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Sound Objects: An Introduction / James A. Steintrager, with Rey Chow 1 I. Genealogies 1. Reflections on the Sound Object and Reduced Listening / Michel Chion 23 2. Pierre Schaeffer and the (Recorded) Sound Source / John Dack 33 3. The Fluctuating Sound Object / Brian Kane 53 II. Aural Reification, Sonic Commodification 4. Listening with Adorno, Again: Nonobjective Objectivity and the Possibility of Critique / James A. Steintrager 73 5. Spectral Objects: On the Fetish Character of Music Technologies / Jonathan Sterne 94 III. Acousmatic Complications 6. Listening after "Acousmaticity": Notes on a Transdisciplinary Problematic / Rey Chow 113 7. The Skin of the Voice: Acousmatic Illusions, Ventriloquial Listening / Pooja Rangan 130 IV. Sound Abjects and Nonhuman Relations 8. The Acoustic Abject: Sound and the Legal Imagination / Veit Erlmann 151 9. The Alluring Objecthood of the Heartbeat / Jairo Moreno and Gavin Steingo 167 10. On Nonhuman Sound—Sound as Relation / Georgina Born 185 V. Memory Traces 11. The Sound of Arche-Cinema / John Mowitt 211 12. Listening to the Sirens / Michael Bull 228 13. Entities Inertias Faint Beings: Drawing as Sounding / David Toop 246 Bibliography 265 Contributors 281 Index 285

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn 1775, the young Count de Sade decided to turn a flight from legal trouble into an opportunity to undertake the grand tour. He transformed his sojourns in Florence, Rome, Naples, and their environs into a philosophical travelogue; alongside advice on where to go and what to see, his Journey to Italy would include analyses of local customs and institutions, history and politics, natural phenomena, and the development of the arts. For today’s readers, Journey to Italy provides remarkable portraits of major Italian cities and the surrounding countryside, vivid accounts of aristocratic and popular entertainments, and a clear sense of what it was like to be a tourist in eighteenth-century Italy from scams, rough roads, and unreliable guidebooks to learned interlocutors, balls, and nights at the opera. We witness Sade learning about the lives of Roman emperors, the machinations and misdeeds of pontiffs, the power struggles of the Medici, the ancient libertinTable of ContentsIntroduction: Marquis de Sade’s Grand Tour I. Florence and the Start of the Journey from La Coste II. Rome III. Environs of Rome: Journey to Frascati, Grotta Ferrata, Marino, Castel Gandolfo, Albano, and Ariccia IV. Naples V. Environs of Naples VI. Route from Rome to Naples or from Naples to Rome Dossiers: I. General Material II. Florence III. Rome Correspondence Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisIs a sound an object, an experience, an event, or a relation? What exactly does the emerging discipline of sound studies study?Sound Objects pursues these questions while exploring how history, culture, and mediation entwine with sound’s elusive objectivity. Examining the genealogy and evolution of the concept of the sound object, the commodification of sound, acousmatic listening, nonhuman sounds, and sound and memory, the contributors not only probe conceptual issues that lie in the forefront of contemporary sonic discussions but also underscore auditory experience as fundamental to sound as a critical enterprise. In so doing, they offer exciting considerations of sound within and beyond its role in meaning, communication, and information and an illuminatingly original theoretical overview of the field of sound studies itself. Contributors. Georgina Born, Michael Bull, Michel Chion, Rey Chow, John Dack, Veit Erlmann, Brian Kane, Jairo Moreno, John MowittTrade Review"The carefully curated sequence of essays and chapters makes a significant contribution to the field of sound studies." -- Aurelio Cianciotta * Neural *"Like the field of sound studies, the essays collected here are disciplinarily difficult to define or contain.… The text may well contribute to the creation of an audience through the challenges it presents. This volume moves the discussion of sound forward by recognizing its aesthetic and ideological richness as well as its ontological instability. As a whole, Sound Objects demonstrates the potential for engagement with sound to reverberate more deeply across artistic, aesthetic, and scholarly landscapes, as well as the promise of richness that comes from examining our basic assumptions." -- Maribeth Clark * Notes *"Sound Objects provides readers with a deepened exploration of the sonic field while maintaining cross-disciplinary conversations to help sound studies further congeal as an integrated field. . . . The collection will also resonate with a wide readership through the range of represented experiences of sound with which readers will identify." -- Kate Galloway * MUSICultures *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Sound Objects: An Introduction / James A. Steintrager, with Rey Chow 1 I. Genealogies 1. Reflections on the Sound Object and Reduced Listening / Michel Chion 23 2. Pierre Schaeffer and the (Recorded) Sound Source / John Dack 33 3. The Fluctuating Sound Object / Brian Kane 53 II. Aural Reification, Sonic Commodification 4. Listening with Adorno, Again: Nonobjective Objectivity and the Possibility of Critique / James A. Steintrager 73 5. Spectral Objects: On the Fetish Character of Music Technologies / Jonathan Sterne 94 III. Acousmatic Complications 6. Listening after "Acousmaticity": Notes on a Transdisciplinary Problematic / Rey Chow 113 7. The Skin of the Voice: Acousmatic Illusions, Ventriloquial Listening / Pooja Rangan 130 IV. Sound Abjects and Nonhuman Relations 8. The Acoustic Abject: Sound and the Legal Imagination / Veit Erlmann 151 9. The Alluring Objecthood of the Heartbeat / Jairo Moreno and Gavin Steingo 167 10. On Nonhuman Sound—Sound as Relation / Georgina Born 185 V. Memory Traces 11. The Sound of Arche-Cinema / John Mowitt 211 12. Listening to the Sirens / Michael Bull 228 13. Entities Inertias Faint Beings: Drawing as Sounding / David Toop 246 Bibliography 265 Contributors 281 Index 285

Read more less

Book SynopsisAppearing here in English for the first time, Michel Chion's Sound addresses the philosophical questions that inform our encounters with sound, stimulating our thinking about being open to new sounds and to explore the links between language, technology, culture, and hearing.Trade Review"Chion's work is refreshing in many ways.... It is clear that Chion lives his topic deeply, and has not simply “researched” it. Alongside the extended theorisation, the book teems with thought-provoking observations, like the best of Jean Baudrillard (who could always be appreciated for his vignettes if not for his theories) or Roland Barthes. How good it is to find that someone else has asked himself why being subjected to one side of a conversation on a mobile phone is even more frustrating than overhearing a two-way conversation in person – and Chion has an answer." -- David Revill * Times Higher Education *"This work . . . is an excellent addition to the literature on sound. It is a stimulating and thought-provoking book that addresses not only basic philosophical ideas but also highly practical questions that inform the reader about encounters with sound. . . . The notes that are provided at the end of the work offer further details and are extremely useful. The glossary is incredibly valuable, especially in describing the French words the author uses. The bibliography is also extensive. In summary, the book is excellent. Recommended. All readers." -- M. G. Prasad * Choice *"Michel Chion’s opus is itself a delight to read. . . . His writing miraculously foregrounds sound without fixating upon its objecthood. Organizationally, he provides clarity through schematic listings of key points throughout the essays and a helpful glossary of terms that he has generated throughout his career." -- Shayna Silverstein * TDR: The Drama Review *"Chion and Schaeffer are part of an active, interventionist, history: they are about how humans seize technologies and put them to undesigned uses, they are about how to dis-alienate the spectacular. Bravo!" -- Tim Hodgkinson * Cultural Critique *Table of ContentsIntroduction. Closed Grooves, Open Ears / James A. Steintrager vii Preface to the French Edition of 2010 xxvii I. Hearing 1. Listening Awakes 3 2. The Ear 16 3. Sound and Time 29 II. A Divided World 4. Voice, Language, and Sounds 45 5. Noise and Music: A Legitimate Distinction? 55 III. The Wheel of Causes 6. The Sound That You Cause: Ergo-Audition 83 7. Sounds and Its Cause: Casual Listening and Figurative Listening 101 8. Sound and What It Causes: Real and Supposed Effects 121 IV. Sound Transformed 9. How Technology Has Changed Sound 131 10. The Audiovisual Couple in Film: Audio-Vision 150 V. Listening, Expressing 11. Object and Non-Object: Two Poles 169 12. Between Doing and Listening: Naming 212 Notes 243 Glossary 265 Bibliography 269 Index 275

Read more less

Book SynopsisAppearing here in English for the first time, Michel Chion's Sound addresses the philosophical questions that inform our encounters with sound, stimulating our thinking about being open to new sounds and to explore the links between language, technology, culture, and hearing.Trade Review"Chion's work is refreshing in many ways.... It is clear that Chion lives his topic deeply, and has not simply “researched” it. Alongside the extended theorisation, the book teems with thought-provoking observations, like the best of Jean Baudrillard (who could always be appreciated for his vignettes if not for his theories) or Roland Barthes. How good it is to find that someone else has asked himself why being subjected to one side of a conversation on a mobile phone is even more frustrating than overhearing a two-way conversation in person – and Chion has an answer." -- David Revill * Times Higher Education *"This work . . . is an excellent addition to the literature on sound. It is a stimulating and thought-provoking book that addresses not only basic philosophical ideas but also highly practical questions that inform the reader about encounters with sound. . . . The notes that are provided at the end of the work offer further details and are extremely useful. The glossary is incredibly valuable, especially in describing the French words the author uses. The bibliography is also extensive. In summary, the book is excellent. Recommended. All readers." -- M. G. Prasad * Choice *"Michel Chion’s opus is itself a delight to read. . . . His writing miraculously foregrounds sound without fixating upon its objecthood. Organizationally, he provides clarity through schematic listings of key points throughout the essays and a helpful glossary of terms that he has generated throughout his career." -- Shayna Silverstein * TDR: The Drama Review *"Chion and Schaeffer are part of an active, interventionist, history: they are about how humans seize technologies and put them to undesigned uses, they are about how to dis-alienate the spectacular. Bravo!" -- Tim Hodgkinson * Cultural Critique *Table of ContentsIntroduction. Closed Grooves, Open Ears / James A. Steintrager vii Preface to the French Edition of 2010 xxvii I. Hearing 1. Listening Awakes 3 2. The Ear 16 3. Sound and Time 29 II. A Divided World 4. Voice, Language, and Sounds 45 5. Noise and Music: A Legitimate Distinction? 55 III. The Wheel of Causes 6. The Sound That You Cause: Ergo-Audition 83 7. Sounds and Its Cause: Casual Listening and Figurative Listening 101 8. Sound and What It Causes: Real and Supposed Effects 121 IV. Sound Transformed 9. How Technology Has Changed Sound 131 10. The Audiovisual Couple in Film: Audio-Vision 150 V. Listening, Expressing 11. Object and Non-Object: Two Poles 169 12. Between Doing and Listening: Naming 212 Notes 243 Glossary 265 Bibliography 269 Index 275

Read more less