Knowing by Ear
eBook - PDF

Knowing by Ear

Listening to Voice Recordings with African Prisoners of War in German Camps (1915ā€“1918)

  1. 216 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Knowing by Ear

Listening to Voice Recordings with African Prisoners of War in German Camps (1915ā€“1918)

About this book

During World War I, thousands of young African men conscripted to fight for France and Britain were captured and held as prisoners of war in Germany, where their stories and songs were recorded and archived by German linguists. In Knowing by Ear, Anette Hoffmann demonstrates that listening to these acoustic recordings as historical sources, rather than linguistic samples, opens up possibilities for new historical perspectives and the formation of alternate archival practices and knowledge production. She foregrounds the archival presence of individual speakers and positions their recorded voices as responses to their experiences of colonialism, war, and the journey from Africa to Europe. By engaging with the recordings alongside written sources, photographs, and artworks depicting the speakers, Hoffmann personalizes speakers from present-day Senegal, Somalia, Togo, and Congo. Knowing by Ear includes transcriptions of numerous recordings of spoken and sung texts, revealing acoustic archives as significant yet under-researched sources for recovering the historical speaking positions of colonized subjects and listen to the acoustic echo of colonial knowledge production.

Frequently asked questions

Yes, you can cancel anytime from the Subscription tab in your account settings on the Perlego website. Your subscription will stay active until the end of your current billing period. Learn how to cancel your subscription.
At the moment all of our mobile-responsive ePub books are available to download via the app. Most of our PDFs are also available to download and we're working on making the final remaining ones downloadable now. Learn more here.
Perlego offers two plans: Essential and Complete
  • Essential is ideal for learners and professionals who enjoy exploring a wide range of subjects. Access the Essential Library with 800,000+ trusted titles and best-sellers across business, personal growth, and the humanities. Includes unlimited reading time and Standard Read Aloud voice.
  • Complete: Perfect for advanced learners and researchers needing full, unrestricted access. Unlock 1.4M+ books across hundreds of subjects, including academic and specialized titles. The Complete Plan also includes advanced features like Premium Read Aloud and Research Assistant.
Both plans are available with monthly, semester, or annual billing cycles.
We are an online textbook subscription service, where you can get access to an entire online library for less than the price of a single book per month. With over 1 million books across 1000+ topics, weā€™ve got you covered! Learn more here.
Look out for the read-aloud symbol on your next book to see if you can listen to it. The read-aloud tool reads text aloud for you, highlighting the text as it is being read. You can pause it, speed it up and slow it down. Learn more here.
Yes! You can use the Perlego app on both iOS or Android devices to read anytime, anywhere ā€” even offline. Perfect for commutes or when youā€™re on the go.
Please note we cannot support devices running on iOS 13 and Android 7 or earlier. Learn more about using the app.
Yes, you can access Knowing by Ear by Anette Hoffmann in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & African History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Contents
  3. Note on Sound Recordings
  4. Gallery
  5. Prologue: Catchers of the Living: Fragment I. Samba Diallo: ā€œThe War Of The Whitesā€ / ā€œCatcher Of The Livingā€
  6. Introduction: Listening to Acoustic Fragments: Fragment ii. JĆ”mafĆ”da: ā€œthe War is Horribleā€
  7. 1. Abdoulaye Niang: Voice, Race, and the Suspension of Communication in Linguistic Recordings: Fragment iii. Asmani Ben Ahmad: ā€œOnce Upon a Timeā€
  8. 2. Mohamed Nur: Traces in Archives, Linguistic Texts, and Museums in Germany: Fragment iv. Josef Ntwanumbi: ā€œwe are Initiatesā€
  9. 3. Albert Kudjabo and Stephan Bischoff: Mysterious Sounds, Opaque Languages, and Otherworldly Voices: Fragment V. Mamadou Gregoire: ā€œThe Sea Requests Fish from the Riversā€
  10. Afterword: Knowing by Ear
  11. Acknowledgments
  12. Notes
  13. References
  14. Index