Statement of Research Interests
I’ve been working on a condensed version of my research interests before I flesh out the prospectus for my dissertation. That said, here’s a draft:
As a PhD candidate in English at the University of Washington, my research interests are framed around three primary areas of study: sonic modernity, the digital humanities, and science and technology studies. My dissertation research, in particular, emerges from the argument that most approaches to digital media and humanities computing are subtended by visual paradigms of knowledge-making, which tend to stress, for example, the stable space of the page, the architecture of typography, and the mass reproduction of images. With this premise in mind, I am in the process of writing a critical genealogy of sound technologies in the 19th and 20th centuries in order to not only diversify and enrich approaches to literary criticism, but to also augment and make more complex our existing understanding of digital media and their relation to the senses. For this project, my primary artifacts are novels, poetry, and other forms of fiction, including 19th century telegraphic fiction, Harlem Renaissance novels, and mid-20th century experiments with magnetic tape conducted by writers. The time periods in which these artifacts materialize are crucial, if nothing else, because they correspond with the rise of specific sound technologies. My investment, however, is in exploring how these technologies—the telegraph, the phonograph, and magnetic tape, in particular—intermediated with new ways of writing, storing, and transmitting experiences, especially those experiences where the interpretive agent is ambiguous or difficult to locate. Indeed, in a post-press, pre-Internet era, new sound technologies did more than allow for the mass reproduction and circulation of sounds. They helped produce new forms of materiality, movement and embodiment. And by unpacking these new forms through a critical genealogy, I hope to conclude my dissertation with a chapter on what that genealogy suggests today for the creative and democratic uses of digital technologies.
Nice work! I’m particularly intrigued by “mid-20th century experiments with magnetic tape conducted by writers”. Rad.
Very inchresting.
I always thought the technology of headphones was an important deveopment in the sonic/musical experience because of the way it changes the listener space. i.e., it actually invents a listener. Maybe it has something to do with a participation/listening polarity or ratio. Like the more you do of one, the less you do of another.
Home and personal high-fidelity sound in general had a huge impact on the prioritization of musical technologies and methodologies. this is a great subject: one i’ve bandied about with for a few years.
I have to raise my eyebrow at the use of the term “democratic”, though. That word is getting thrown around a lot, and I think you might have a hard time pulling the trigger with that in your magazine.
thanks, matt and sean.
matt — we’ll have to talk more about writers working with tape, esp. burroughs. i could go on and on.
sean — your comment reminds me of advertisements from 1888 for the graphophone, where the ear is connected to the machine for the purposes of taking dictation. that machine, and others, definitely invented a listener, usually women listeners (in the workplace).
and, indeed, “democratic” here is a tad heavy-handed and sloppy. thanks for calling me on it.