James H. Johnson: Listening in Paris: A Cultural History (1996)

Beginning with the simple question, “Why did audiences grow silent?” Listening in Paris gives a spectator’s-eye view of opera and concert life from the Old Regime to the Romantic era, describing the transformation in musical experience from social event to profound aesthetic encounter. James H. Johnson recreates the experience of audiences during these rich decades with brio and wit. Woven into the narrative is an analysis of the political, musical, and aesthetic factors that produced more engaged listening. Johnson shows the gradual pacification of audiences from loud and unruly listeners to the attentive public we know today.

Drawing from a wide range of sources–novels, memoirs, police files, personal correspondence, newspaper reviews, architectural plans, and the like–Johnson brings the performances to life: the hubbub of eighteenth-century opera, the exuberance of Revolutionary audiences, Napoleon’s musical authoritarianism, the bourgeoisie’s polite consideration. He singles out the music of Gluck, Haydn, Rossini, and Beethoven as especially important in forging new ways of hearing. This book’s theoretical edge will appeal to cultural and intellectual historians in many fields and periods.

Publisher University of California Press, Berkeley/Los Angeles/London, 1996
Volume 21 of Studies on the History of Society and Culture series
ISBN 0520918231, 9780520918238
384 pages

publisher
google books

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Václav Havel: Antikódy (1964) [Czech]

Collection of concrete poems written by Václav Havel in the early 1960s. The book was followed by Antikody II manuscript (1968), published in a joint edition by Odeon in 1993. Torst edition (1999) also includes his early poems from 1952-56. Most complete edition was published by Václav Havel Library in 2013.

Publisher Odeon, Prague, 1964
153 pages

theatre adaptation (premiered at the Czech National Theatre on March 21, 2013)

PDF

Élisabeth Roudinesco: Jacques Lacan: Outline of a Life, History of a System of Thought (1993-) [Spanish/English]

Jacques Lacan remains not only one of the foremost intellectuals of the century, but also one of the most controversial. As a young doctor he set out to reinvent clinical psychotherapy and ended up transforming fundamental notions of the self, sexuality and the culture that shapes it all. This first major biography of Lacan is a fascinating portrait of his life and a masterful explication of the unorthodox, often perplexing ideas that brought him renown. 22 photos.

Originally published in French as Jacques Lacan: Esquisse d’une vie, histoire d’un systeme de pensee, Librairie Artheme Fayard, 1993

Spanish edition
Translated by Tomás Segovia
Publisher FCE, Argentina, 1994, FCE, Colombia, 2000
ISBN 9505572107, 9789505572106
815 pages

English edition
Translated by Barbara Bray
Publisher Columbia University Press, New York, 1997
European Perspectives series
ISBN 0231101465, 9780231101462
574 pages

google books (EN)

Lacan: Esbozo de una vida, historia de un sistema de pensamiento (Spanish, 1994)
Lacan: A Biography (English, 1997, DJVU, no OCR)