ABSTRACT

Sonic Encounters with Blanchot is the first book to explore the relationship of sound and music with the work of Maurice Blanchot.

The volume brings together scholars from a range of disciplines who listen closely to the sounds and resonances emanating from within Blanchot’s work and who consider their significance both within his work and beyond. The latent and explicit sonic content of Blanchot’s writing is explored, as is his treatment of music and the possibilities of thinking about contemporary music and sound art through his work. Although Blanchot is best known for his engagement with literature, an engagement that often relies on visual references and experiences, this collection takes a sonic route into one of the most exciting and demanding thinkers of the twentieth century.

As an interdisciplinary exploration of sound and Blanchot’s work, this book will be interest to those studying sound in literature and music, as well as students of Blanchot’s work in general. This book was originally published as a special issue of Angelaki.

chapter |7 pages

Introduction

Blanchot and Sound

chapter |14 pages

From Dialectics to the Diabolical

adorno’s “new music” and blanchot’s “ars nova”

chapter |16 pages

Passive Noise

chapter |17 pages

Aesthetic Autophony and the Night

blanchot, kafka, kimsooja, burial

chapter |13 pages

Affects, Indexes and Signs

will oldham and the authenticity of the voice in popular music

chapter |13 pages

In the Absence of Noise, Nothing Sounds

blanchot and the performance of harsh noise wall

chapter |14 pages

Sonic Booms in Blanchot

chapter |20 pages

Rumors of the Outside

blanchot’s murmurs and the indistinction of literature

chapter |16 pages

Orpheus and the Vanishing Note

xenosonics, katabasis, daemonotechnics