Emily Thompson, an historian of technology at Princeton and author of The Soundscape of Modernity, will be the keynote speaker.
About the Call for Papers:
Conference Theme: “Sound and Silence in the Space Between (1914-1945)“
From the growl of automobile and airplane engines and the whir of electric appliances to fascism’s oppressive silences, the years between 1914 and 1945 witnessed a variety of new sounds and silences. This interdisciplinary conference invites historians and critics of literature, art, music, film, dance, and popular culture to explore the myriad sounds and silences of the interwar period.
Possible topics include:
- The impact of the telegraph, telephone, radio, and sound film on modern subjectivity and expression
- The new sounds of technology and war
- The enforced silencing of political and cultural critique
- The sounds of political and social protest
- Silence as spirituality, as resistance, as consent
- The sounds of previously marginalized or disenfranchised voices
- The incorporation of sound and noise into literature and art
- The rising awareness of sound in shaping everyday experience
- The breakdown of classical tonality and the rise of new tonal structures
Organizers request that you send 300-word abstract and a one-page C.V. to Erika Doss at doss.2@nd.edu.
New Deadline for submissions: Jan. 30, 2009