Moving Sounds: Technology and the Sonic Sensorium from the Caribbean to the Southern Cone

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

Examining the aesthetic reception and re-imagination of sonic objects as varied as bird song, popular radio drama, and immigrant voices, this panel asks how recording and broadcast technologies helped writers and performers engage novel sounds in an attempt to reorganize the social sensorium—the intersection of social life and the physiology of sound. Especially attuned to sounds that challenge governing norms of national voice, the panel’s shared expertise in sound studies and disciplines including anthropology, history, and literary and media theory, will explore how sound technology has transformed art, politics, and disciplinary formation throughout the Caribbean and Latin America.

Sub Track

• Mass Media and Popular Culture

Session Organizers

• Tom P McEnaney, Cornell University

• Christine T Ehrick, University of Louisville

Chairs

• Tom P McEnaney, Cornell University

• Christine T Ehrick, University of Louisville

Individual Presentations

• Sarduy’s Dolores Rondón: Expanding the Latin American Cultural Archive - Anke Birkenmaier, Indiana University

• Records of the Sonic Exotic - Alejandra M Bronfman, University of British Columbia

• Comedy, Gender, and the Soundscape of Immigration in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1930s-1940s - Christine T Ehrick, University of Louisville

• “Pitched Battles: Radio’s Common Places in Puig’s Boquitas Pintadas” - Tom P McEnaney, Cornell University