Jean-Luc Nancy: Listening (2002/2007) [French/English]
Filed under book | Tags: · listening, mimesis, music, nazism, philosophy, philosophy of music, sound recording
In this lyrical meditation on listening, Jean-Luc Nancy examines sound in relation to the human body. How is listening different from hearing? What does listening entail? How does what is heard differ from what is seen? Can philosophy even address listening, couter, as opposed to entendre, which means both hearing and understanding?
Unlike the visual arts, sound produces effects that persist long after it has stopped. The body, Nancy says, is itself like an echo chamber, responding to music by inner vibrations as well as outer attentiveness. Since the ear has no eyelid (Quignard), sound cannot be blocked out or ignored: our whole being is involved in listening, just as it is involved in interpreting what it hears.The mystery of music and of its effects on the listener is subtly examined. Nancy’s skill as a philosopher is to bring the reader companionably along with him as he examines these fresh and vital questions; by the end of the book the reader feels as if listening very carefully to a person talking quietly, close to the ear.
French edition: À l’écoute
Publisher Éditions Galilée, Paris, 2002
ISBN 9782718605975
96 pages
English edition
Translated by Charlotte Mandell
Publisher Fordham University Press, New York, 2007
ISBN 0823227731, 9780823227730
85 pages
publisher (FR)
google books (EN)
PDF (French, no OCR)
PDF (English, EPUB)
Michael Taussig: Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses (1993)
Filed under book | Tags: · alterity, anthropology, colonialism, ethnography, mimesis, racism, society
In his most ambitious and accomplished work to date, Michael Taussig undertakes a history of mimesis, the practice of imitation, and its relation to alterity, the opposition of Self and Other. Drawing upon such diverse sources as theories of Benjamin, Adorno and Horckheimer, research on the Cuna Indians, and theories of colonialism and postcolonialism, Taussig shows that the history of mimesis is deeply tied to colonialism, and more specifically, to the colonial trade’s construction of “savages.” With analysis that is vigorous, unorthodox, and often breathtaking, Taussig’s cross-cultural discussion of mimesis deepens our understanding of the relationship between ethnography, racism and society.
Publisher Routledge, New York/London, 1993
ISBN 0415906873, 9780415906876
320 pages
Melissa Gregg, Gregory J. Seigworth (eds.): The Affect Theory Reader (2010)
Filed under book | Tags: · aesthetics, affect, anthropology, autopoiesis, biopolitics, cultural studies, everyday, geography, mimesis, philosophy, psychology, schismogenesis, sociology, synaesthesia
This field-defining collection consolidates and builds momentum in the burgeoning area of affect studies. The contributors include many of the central theorists of affect—those visceral forces beneath, alongside, or generally other than conscious knowing that can serve to drive us toward movement, thought, and ever-changing forms of relation. As Lauren Berlant explores “cruel optimism,” Brian Massumi theorizes the affective logic of public threat, and Elspeth Probyn examines shame, they, along with the other contributors, show how an awareness of affect is opening up exciting new insights in disciplines from anthropology, cultural studies, geography, and psychology to philosophy, queer studies, and sociology. In essays diverse in subject matter, style, and perspective, the contributors demonstrate how affect theory illuminates the intertwined realms of the aesthetic, the ethical, and the political as they play out across bodies (human and non-human) in both mundane and extraordinary ways. They reveal the broad theoretical possibilities opened by an awareness of affect as they reflect on topics including ethics, food, public morale, glamor, snark in the workplace, and mental health regimes. The Affect Theory Reader includes an interview with the cultural theorist Lawrence Grossberg and an afterword by the anthropologist Kathleen Stewart. In the introduction, the editors suggest ways of defining affect, trace the concept’s history, and highlight the role of affect theory in various areas of study.
Contributors: Sara Ahmed, Ben Anderson, Lauren Berlant, Lone Bertelsen, Steven D. Brown, Patricia Ticineto Clough, Anna Gibbs, Melissa Gregg, Lawrence Grossberg, Ben Highmore, Brian Massumi, Andrew Murphie, Elspeth Probyn, Gregory J. Seigworth, Kathleen Stewart, Nigel Thrift, Ian Tucker, Megan Watkins
Publisher Duke University Press, 2010
ISBN 0822347768, 9780822347767
416 pages
PDF (no OCR, updated on 2013-1-23)
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