Listening to Modernism: New Books in the History of Sound

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 385-395 ◽  
Author(s):  
CLARA HUNTER LATHAM
Keyword(s):  
Sound Studies ◽  
The Body ◽  
Musical Aesthetics ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
Scientific Certainty ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
History Of ◽  
Sound Reproduction Technologies ◽  
Sound Technology

The rapid industrialisation and electrification that characterises the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries involved the revolutionary and irreversible technologisation of sound. The ability to send sound great distances, through time and space, amplified the instability of sonic presence both inside and outside the body. Sound reproduction technologies such as gramophone and radio emphasise the questionable materiality of sound. Scholarship in the emerging field of sound studies has tended to focus on sound technologies that emerge in this period, promoting the axiom that the ear epitomises modern sensibility. Even before technological developments revolutionised sound, discourses surrounding the ear anticipated the collapse of scientific certainty that marks the modern age. Developments in sound technology can mask the severing of scientific measurement from musical aesthetics that coincided with the age of recording. If the study of sound in modernity has tended to focus on technological changes and bracket aesthetic questions, it is perhaps because the relationships among the science, technology and aesthetics of sound have not yet been adequately parsed.

scholarly journals Music, Politics, and History: An Introduction

2021 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 362-374
Author(s):  
David Kennerley
Keyword(s):  
Sound Studies ◽  
The Body ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Short Article ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Music And Politics ◽  
Introductory Article ◽  
History Of ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractMusic has been steadily rising up the historical agenda, a product of the emergence of sound studies, the history of the senses, and a mood of interdisciplinary curiosity. This introductory article offers a critical review of how the relationship between music and politics has featured in extant historical writing, from classic works of political history to the most recent scholarship. It begins by evaluating different approaches that historians have taken to music, summarizes the important shifts in method that have recently taken place, and advocates for a performance-centered, contextualized framework that is attentive to the distinctive features of music as a medium. The second half examines avenues for future research into the historical connections between music and politics, focusing on four thematic areas—the body, emotions, space, and memory—and closes with some overarching reflections on music's use as a tool of power, as well as a challenge to it. Although for reasons of cohesion, this short article focuses primarily on scholarship on Britain and Ireland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, its discussion of theory and methods is intended to be applicable to the study of music and political culture across a broad range of periods and geographies.

scholarly journals Five thousand years of minimal access surgery: 1850 to 1990: Technological developments

2020 ◽  
pp. 014107682096791
Author(s):  
Rachel Hargest
Keyword(s):  
Surgical Care ◽  
The Body ◽  
Minimal Access Surgery ◽  
Minimal Access ◽  
Medical Practitioners ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Therapeutic Procedures ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
History Of ◽  
Access Surgery

Summary This is the second of a three-part series that charts the history of minimal access surgery from antiquity to current times. Although rapid developments in laparoscopic and robotic surgery have transformed surgical care over the last 30 years, our predecessors made significant advances in their time which set the principles for modern practice. Part I of this series described how ancient medical practitioners developed simple instruments, from metal or wood, for viewing body cavities. Improvements in the use of metal, glass and lighting allowed for inspection of deeper parts of the body. This second part of the series will show how advances in electrical technology allowed the development of improved lighting for endoscopy and laparoscopy along with the use of electrocautery for a wide range of therapeutic procedures.

scholarly journals Molecules of an author in search of memory

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luigi Dei
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Atom ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Periodic Table ◽  
The Body ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Fahrenheit 451 ◽  
Common Man

Loosely based on Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table, the play has a Fahrenheit 451 setting. In a world without books or memory appears a common man, the Man in the street, with some heets of writing that he cannot make out. With the help of the narrator, Science, Technology and Nature, and of two actors who remain offstage for a long while – Primo and his friend Alberto – this man is able to reconstruct the events of the chapter entitled Cerium. In this way, and thanks to this act of remembrance, lost identity – our history – is recreated. Science, Technology and Nature free this man without memory from his state of not-knowing, by giving him scientific knowledge and understanding. The play finds its catharsis in a deeply moving passage, inspired by the chapter Carbon, which creates an atemporal connection between a carbon atom from the smoke of a crematorium chimney and one residing in the body of any one of us: a poetic parable of a science firmly anchored in the life and history of man.

scholarly journals Molecole d'autore in cerca di memoria

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luigi Dei
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
The Body ◽  
Narrative Voice ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Fahrenheit 451

Based loosely on Primo Levi's Il Sistema Periodico, the play is set in a Fahrenheit 451 scenario. In this world without either books or memory, a man of the street arrives with a bundle of not easily decipherable papers: with the help of the narrative voice, of his friends – Science, Technology and Nature – and of two actors at length off-stage, Primo and his friend Alberto, the man succeeds in reconstructing the episode of the story Cerio. Through memory he thus reconstructs the lost identity, that is our history. Science, Technology and Nature allow the man without memory to master scientific knowledge and free himself from his state. The drama finds its catharsis in a poignant passage, inspired by the story Carbonio, which lyrically sets up a temporal link between an atom of carbon from the smoke of a crematorium and the same dwelling within the body of each one of us: a poetic parabola of a science immersed in the life and history of man.

scholarly journals Molecole d'autore in cerca di memoria

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luigi Dei
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Atom ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Periodic Table ◽  
The Body ◽  
Narrative Voice ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Fahrenheit 451

Freely adapted from Primo Levi's The Periodic Table, the drama takes place in a Fahrenheit 451-like scenario. In this world without books or memory, a man from the street appears with some pieces of paper, almost undecipherable: with the help of the narrative voice, of his friends - Science, Technology and Nature - and of two actors, Primo and his friend Alberto, the man manages to reconstruct the episode Cerium’s story. Thanks to the memory, the lost identity, that is our story, is reconstructed. Science, Technology and Nature allow the man without memory to take possession of scientific knowledge and to emancipate himself from his state. The drama finds its catharsis by taking a moving turn, inspired by the short story Carbon, which lyrically creates a timeless connection between a carbon atom of the smoke of a crematorium and the same atom dwelling in the body of some of us, a poetic parable of a science immersed in the life and history of man.

scholarly journals ‘False Relations’: Hermann von Helmholtz's Study of Music and the Delineation of Nineteenth-Century Physiology

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Julia Kursell
Keyword(s):  
Music Theory ◽  
Experimental Methods ◽  
The Body ◽  
Background Information ◽  
Musical Aesthetics ◽  
Physiological Basis ◽  
History Of ◽  
Controlled Experimentation ◽  
Hugo Riemann ◽  
Point Of Departure

This article discusses the delineation between physiology and music theory in Hermann von Helmholtz's On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music (1863). It takes the phenomenon of ‘false relations’ as a point of departure to question the methodology Helmholtz devised to study music and hearing. The key to understanding this experimental method is the concept of ‘controlled deviation’, which is substantiated in two main sections. After providing some background information on the history of music theory, the first section explores ‘false relations’ within the context of physiological experimentation and hydrodynamics, the two most important areas of Helmholtz's scientific research. The second section of the article is centred on the experimental methods of Helmholtz as used in his investigation of vision and hearing. More specifically, it introduces notions of distortion, defamiliarization and deviation to distinguish levels of physiology that relate to the body and to cognition. As it turns out, music posed specific problems for the researcher. Beyond the ephemerality of sound, the malleability of hearing and of musical aesthetics proved even more of an obstacle for controlled experimentation. The article concludes with a discussion of Hugo Riemann, who continued to explore the central finding of Helmholtz, namely that the rules of music change due to the habits of the listener.

Aspergillus Spondylodiscitis After Spinal Stenosis Surgery: A Case Report

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (3 And 4) ◽  
pp. 155-160
Author(s):  
Mohsen Aghapoor ◽  
◽  
Babak Alijani Alijani ◽  
Mahsa Pakseresht-Mogharab ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Antifungal Drugs ◽  
The Body ◽  
Lower Limbs ◽  
Lumbar Pain ◽  
Case Presentation ◽  
Delay In Diagnosis ◽  
Death Case ◽  
Therapeutic Results ◽  
History Of ◽  
Probable Diagnosis

Background and Importance: Spondylodiscitis is an inflammatory disease of the body of one or more vertebrae and intervertebral disc. The fungal etiology of this disease is rare, particularly in patients without immunodeficiency. Delay in diagnosis and treatment of this disease can lead to complications and even death. Case Presentation: A 63-year-old diabetic female patient, who had a history of spinal surgery and complaining radicular lumbar pain in both lower limbs with a probable diagnosis of spondylodiscitis, underwent partial L2 and complete L3 and L4 corpectomy and fusion. As a result of pathology from tissue biopsy specimen, Aspergillus fungi were observed. There was no evidence of immunodeficiency in the patient. The patient was treated with Itraconazole 100 mg twice a day for two months. Pain, neurological symptom, and laboratory tests improved. Conclusion: The debridement surgery coupled with antifungal drugs can lead to the best therapeutic results.

Migration and Modernities

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Native Americans ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Racial Categories ◽  
Geographic Boundaries ◽  
The Us ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries

Migration and Modernities recovers a comparative literary history of migration by bringing together scholars from the US and Europe to explore the connections between migrant experiences and the uneven emergence of modernity. The collection initiates transnational, transcultural and interdisciplinary conversations about migration in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, demonstrating how mobility unsettles the geographic boundaries, temporal periodization, and racial categories we often use to organize literary and historical study. Migrants are by definition liminal, and many have existed historically in the spaces between nations, regions or ethnicities. In exploring these spaces, Migration and Modernities also investigates the origins of current debates about belonging, rights, and citizenship. Its chapters traverse the globe, revealing the experiences — real or imagined — of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century migrants, from dispossessed Native Americans to soldiers in South America, Turkish refugees to Scottish settlers. They explore the aesthetic and rhetorical frameworks used to represent migrant experiences during a time when imperial expansion and technological developments made the fortunes of some migrants and made exiles out of others. These frameworks continue to influence the narratives we tell ourselves about migration today and were crucial in producing a distinctively modern subjectivity in which mobility and rootlessness have become normative.

Re-imagining Reproduction: Unsettling Metaphors in the History of Imperial Science and Commercial Surrogacy in India

Somatechnics ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kalindi Vora
Keyword(s):  
Assisted Reproductive Technologies ◽  
Reproductive Technologies ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
Women's Bodies ◽  
Commercial Surrogacy ◽  
Art Practices ◽  
History Of ◽  
Travel Industry

This paper provides an analysis of how cultural notions of the body and kinship conveyed through Western medical technologies and practices in Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) bring together India's colonial history and its economic development through outsourcing, globalisation and instrumentalised notions of the reproductive body in transnational commercial surrogacy. Essential to this industry is the concept of the disembodied uterus that has arisen in scientific and medical practice, which allows for the logic of the ‘gestational carrier’ as a functional role in ART practices, and therefore in transnational medical fertility travel to India. Highlighting the instrumentalisation of the uterus as an alienable component of a body and subject – and therefore of women's bodies in surrogacy – helps elucidate some of the material and political stakes that accompany the growth of the fertility travel industry in India, where histories of privilege and difference converge. I conclude that the metaphors we use to structure our understanding of bodies and body parts impact how we imagine appropriate roles for people and their bodies in ways that are still deeply entangled with imperial histories of science, and these histories shape the contemporary disparities found in access to medical and legal protections among participants in transnational surrogacy arrangements.

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