In addition to Hearing Modernity, there are several other exciting series of a similar nature taking place this year. One of those is the Listening Workshop at Royal Holloway’s Humanities and Arts Research Centre, organized by Rachel Beckles Willson. Here is some information on that series. -PM
The Listening Workshop, 2013-14
Humanities and Arts Research Centre (HARC), Royal Holloway, University of London.
11 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3RF.
Chaired by Professor Rachel Beckles Willson, Director of HARC
Royal Holloway’s Humanities and Arts Research Centre (HARC) is pleased to announce The Listening Workshop, a new central London forum for inter-disciplinary thought. Sound and listening have become focal points for a number of disciplines in recent years; they are also at the heart of political debates on topics ranging from surveillance and freedom of speech to ‘harsh interrogation’ strategies (sonic torture) at institutions of detention. The Listening Workshop is one of several projects developing in response to HARC’s theme this year, ‘Activisms’.
Activism takes place within a web of communications that is rarely – if ever – silent. It is indeed often rather noisy. Expressions such as ‘speaking up for’ and ‘calling for change’ point to the centrality of the vocal, alongside which we find ‘lending an ear’ and ‘tuning in’, conscious acts of listening. But such slogans risk trivializing a complex process. What does it mean to listen, after all? How can we grasp what we hear(d)? How are social and technological changes transforming our sound worlds today? What is sonic practice in the context of aesthetics and design?
The Listening Workshop has two interlocking strands. One of these is a Reading Group, co-convened by Rachel Beckles Willson and Carlo Cenciarelli, consisting of an open forum for discussing new and canonic texts on the history, ethnography and theory of listening. The other strand is a series of talks by speakers from a variety of disciplines (English Literature, Ethnomusicology, Geography, History, Media Arts, Musicology, Sociology). Subjects range from ‘sonic horror’ in fiction to sound design to urban soundscapes and beyond.
See below for the outlined programme, which includes the Reading Group and talks. For more details, including abstracts, please follow this link http://www.rhul.ac.uk/harc/
All are welcome. Enquiries should be sent to Rachel Beckles Willson [R.BecklesWillson@rhul.ac.uk].
November 15, Christopher Townsend (Royal Holloway, London University): Erik Satie and Francis Picabia’s Relâche (1924): parodying the post 1918 ‘call to order’ in ballet and in film.
December 6, Reading Group: ‘Listening and the City’
December 13, James Currie: ‘Listening and the Limits of Understanding: Lacanian Reflections on Said’s Late Style’
January 17, Paul Simpson (School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Plymouth University): ‘Spacing politics and methods in ambiance and atmospheres research: Listenings from St Pancras and Gare du Nord’
February 7, Nick Couldry (Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics): ‘Practices of Listening: Or, What it might mean to take Voice Seriously’
February 14, Reading Group
February 21, Steve Connor (Faculty of English, University of Cambridge) ‘Violent Listening’
February 28, M.J. Grant (Musicology, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen): ‘Listening to Torture’
March 7, Reading Group
March 21, Reading Group
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