Notice bibliographique
- Notice
Type(s) de contenu et mode(s) de consultation : Texte noté. Image fixe : sans médiation
Auteur(s) : Saint-Clair, Justin (1975-....)
Titre(s) : Sound and aural media in postmodern literature [Texte imprimé] : novel listening / Justin St. Clair
Publication : New York : Routledge, 2013
Description matérielle : 1 vol. (XIV-186 p.) : ill. ; 24 cm
Collection : Routledge studies in twentieth-century literature ; 32
Lien à la collection : Routledge studies in twentieth-century literature
Comprend : Introduction: toward postmodern soundscapes ; The player piano: musical programming
in the age of mechanical reproduction ; Radio for dummies: alien invasions, déjà
vu voodoo, and the ventriloquy of America ; Sounding off: the postmodern novel considers
television audio ; Listen to the Muzak: the social implications of background sound
; Coda: background sound: the remix.
Note(s) : Includes bibliographical references (pages 173-182) and index
"This study examines postmodern literature-- including works by Kurt Vonnegut, William
Gaddis, Don DeLillo, Philip K. Dick, Ishmael Reed, and Thomas Pynchon --arguing that
one of the formal logics of postmodern fiction is heterophonia: a pluralism of sound.
The postmodern novel not only bears earwitness to a crucial period in American aural
history, but it also offers a critique of the American soundscape by rebroadcasting
extant technological discourses. Working chronologically through four audio transmission
technologies of the twentieth century (the player piano, radio, television audio,
and Muzak installations), St. Clair charts the tendency of ever-proliferating audio
streams to become increasingly subsumed as background sound. The postmodern novel
attends specifically to this background sound, warning that inattention to the increasingly
complex sonic backdrop allows for ever more sophisticated techniques of aural manipulation--from
advertising jingles to mood-altering ambient sound. Building upon interdisciplinary
work from the emerging field of sound culture studies, this book ultimately contends
that a complementary, yet seemingly contradictory double logic characterizes the postmodern
novel's engagement with narratives of aural influence. On the one hand, such narratives
echo and amplify postwar fiction's media anxiety; on the other hand, they allow print
fiction to appropriate the techniques of aural media. This dialectical engagement
with media aurality--this simultaneous impulse to repudiate and to utilize--is the
central mechanism of the heterophonic novel."--Publisher's website
Sujet(s) : Musique -- Dans la littérature
Roman américain -- 20e siècle
Identifiants, prix et caractéristiques : ISBN 9780415661393 (hardback) (alk. paper). - ISBN 0415661390 (hardback) (alk. paper).
- ISBN 9780203073513 (erroné) (ebook). - ISBN 0203073517 (erroné) (ebook)
Identifiant de la notice : ark:/12148/cb42762002c
Notice n° :
FRBNF42762002
(notice reprise d'un réservoir extérieur)
