COML 4414

The Sound of Literature

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2016-2017.

When we speak, we think of our voice as natural to us. This course will interrogate the basis of this assumption by focusing on the voice as a trained cultural technique.  In this course, we will look at the history of this topic from Plato to Nietzsche through close critical readings of literary and philosophical depictions of listening and acoustic performances up to and prior to the age of the phonograph. How did philosophers, pastors, and poets describe, observe, imagine sound before sounds could be recorded? Were there particular modes of listening or speaking more appropriate for the "right" kind of literary or philosophical understanding? How did listening intersect with the visual apprehension of the printed page, painting or sculpture? How do vocal techniques construct either a national culture or other types of communities? Readings will include texts by Plato, Lucretius, Augustine, Rousseau, Goethe, Klopstock, Herder, Nietzsche, Michel de Certeau, Friedrich Kittler, Michel Chion, and Walter Ong.

When Offered Spring.

Breadth Requirement (HB)
Distribution Category (LA-AS)

Comments Texts and discussions in English.

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