Sonic Intimacy

Voice, Species, Technics (or, How To Listen to the World)

Dominic Pettman

• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781503601451, 9780804799881
• eBook ISBN: 9781503601482
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ethics & Moral Philosophy

Sonic Intimacy asks us who—or what—deserves to have a voice, beyond the human. Arguing that our ears are far too narrowly attuned to our own species, the book explores four different types of voices: the cybernetic, the gendered, the creaturely, and the ecological. Through both a conceptual framework and a series of case studies, Dominic Pettman tracks some of the ways in which these voices intersect and interact. He demonstrates how intimacy is forged through the ear, perhaps even more than through any other sense, mode, or medium. The voice, then, is what creates intimacy, both fleeting and lasting, not only between people, but also between animals, machines, and even natural elements: those presumed not to have a voice in the first place. Taken together, the manifold, material, actual voices of the world, whether primarily natural or technological, are a complex cacophony that is desperately trying to tell us something about the rapidly failing health of the planet and its inhabitants. As Pettman cautions, we would do well to listen.

NAME INDEX

Aaronson, Xavier 85, 117

Agamben, Giorgio 4, 38, 73, 96, 104, 107, 108, 115, 117, 121

Almodóvar, Pedro 113

Althusser, Louis 8, 37

Andersson, Karin Dreijer 43, 105

Anzieu, Didier 95, 117

Arendt, Hannah 35–36, 104

Aristotle 53, 71, 96, 104, 108, 117

Arnheim, Rudolf 102, 117

Australian Karen 17, 20

Bach, Johann Sebastian 88

Backes, Martin 105, 117

Badiou, Alain 16, 98, 117

Baker, Nicholson 100, 117

Barthes, Roland 29, 43–47, 75–76, 82, 106, 117–118

Beck, Julie 100, 118

Benjamin, Walter 36, 38

Bentham, Jeremy 109

Bergman, Ingmar 109

Berio, Luciano 103

Berlant, Lauren 27, 118

Bernays, Edward 34

Bersani, Leo 80, 104, 113, 118

Bezos, Jeff 102

Birkin, Jane 99

Björk 105

Bogost, Ian 114, 118

Bowen, David 85, 113

Brand, David 107, 113, 118

Bressan, Paola 112, 121

Bright, Susie 99

Brophy, Philip 53, 108, 118

Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir 43

Bush, Kate 105

Butler, Judith 105

Butler, Shane 71, 74, 97, 111–112, 118

Cage, John 83

Caillois, Roger 111, 118

Calvino, Italo 104

Carson, Anne 103, 118

Caruso, Enrico 33

Cavarero, Adriana 29, 30, 35–38, 42–48, 102–106, 118, 122

Cecchetto, David 1...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Epigraphs
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction. The Aural Phase
• One. The Cybernetic Voice
• Two. The Gendered Voice
• Three. The Creaturely Voice
• Four. The Ecological Voice (Vox Mundi)
• Conclusion. In Salutation of All the Voices
• Notes
• Works Cited
• Name Index