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Palgrave Macmillan

Sound Poetics

Interaction and Personal Identity

  • Book
  • © 2017

Overview

Authors:
  1. Seán Street

    1. Bournemouth Media School, Bournemouth University Bournemouth Media School, Poole, United Kingdom

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  • Offers a thoroughly interdisciplinary exploration of sound from the perspective of poetics
  • Makes an argument for sound as an underlying force that links us to the world we inhabit
  • Written from the perspective of both an active sound practitioner and a poet
  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Sound (PASTS)

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Table of contents (6 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xv
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Poetry and the Idea of Sound

    • Seán Street
    Pages 1-16

  3. Silent Sound: Imagination and Identification

    • Seán Street
    Pages 17-35

  4. Transmitters and Receivers: Shared and Selected Sound

    • Seán Street
    Pages 37-55

  5. Invasion of the Sound Aliens

    • Seán Street
    Pages 57-74

  6. Uncomfortably Numb: Alone in the Sound World

    • Seán Street
    Pages 75-91

  7. Searching for the Sound of Self

    • Seán Street
    Pages 93-111

  8. Back Matter

    Pages 113-122
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Keywords

About this book

This book examines sonic signals as something both heard internally and externally, through imagination, memory and direct response. In doing so it explores how the mind 'makes' sound through experience, as it interprets codes on the written page, and creates an internal leitmotif that then interacts with new sounds made through an aural partnership with the external world, chosen and involuntary exposure to music and sound messages, both friendly and antagonistic to the identity of the self. It creates an argument for sound as an underlying force that links us to the world we inhabit, an essential part of being in the same primal sense as the calls of birds and other inhabitants of a shared earth. Street argues that sound as a poetic force is part of who we are, linked to our visualisation and sense of the world, as idea and presence within us. This incredibly interdisciplinary book will be of great interest to scholars of radio, sound, media and literature as well as philosophy and psychology. 

Reviews

“Our all-too perfunctory understanding of terms and concepts like silence, voice, noise and listening is expanded immeasurably by Professor Seán Street’s perceptive study of these states of being, and the fundamental and abiding role that sound plays in shaping our personal identities as human beings. Street can be commended for a book which manages to ground its richly philosophical and metaphysical observations on sound and listening with a concern with the demotic potentialities of broadcasting, and an awareness of what it means to be exposed to the man-made and mediated hubbub of noise in daily life (the proverbial ‘ear to the ground’). A major contribution towards something overlooked (or unheard) in the humanities - an ethnography of listening.” (Dr Ieuan Franklin, Bournemouth University, UK)

“Seán Street has written a masterpiece on the place for the poetic soul in radio and sound communication, art, and listening. 'Is there anyone there?' cried a character in the Walter De La Mare’s  poem ‘The Listeners.’  When reading 'Sound Poetics: Interaction and Personal Identity' you may well find an answer. Elegantly crafted prose conjures the emotions, intellect and human identity of sound poetics, reflecting on the philosophy and meaning of the connections between memory, sound, silence and story telling. This is a powerful interplay of interdisciplinary academic research and writing that is mellifluous rather than fevered, and leaves the reader with rich thoughts, ideas and sentiments.” (Professor Tim Crook, Head of Radio, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Bournemouth Media School, Bournemouth University Bournemouth Media School, Poole, United Kingdom

    Seán Street

About the author

Seán Street is Emeritus Professor of Radio at Bournemouth University, UK. He has appeared in many radio and television programmes, discussing the history and aesthetics of radio and sound. As a poet, he has published nine collections.


Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Sound Poetics

  • Book Subtitle: Interaction and Personal Identity

  • Authors: Seán Street

  • Series Title: Palgrave Studies in Sound

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58676-2

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2017

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-58675-5Published: 26 July 2017

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-86452-5Published: 04 August 2018

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-58676-2Published: 14 July 2017

  • Series ISSN: 2633-5875

  • Series E-ISSN: 2633-5883

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XV, 122

  • Topics: Media Sociology, Poetry and Poetics, Memory Studies, Philosophy of Technology

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