Noises from the Lettered City: Re-imagining conflictive spaces through sound in Latin-America from the nineteenth century onwards

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

Drawing from interdisciplinary approaches in literature, sound studies, and political violence, this panel reflects on forms in which sound events (noises of dissidence, street criers, radio-novels, and punk music) intermingle with narratives, and manifest social tensions and conflicts of class, race, gender and affect, re-configuring political identities in Peruvian, Mexican, and Colombian communities from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Through the analysis of sonic and aural experiences, this panel emphasizes the relevant role of sound -its production, representation, and consumption- in the creation of narratives of nation, modernity, and tradition in Latin America. Moreover, the panel delves into the transformation of the soundscapes in the transition between centuries, exploring the use of new technologies and genres, and the challenges of representing the complexity of the social life of sonorities inside the realm of the lettered city.

Sub Track

• Literature and Culture: Interdisciplinary Approaches

Session Organizer

• Azucena Hernandez Ramirez, University of California Berkeley

Chair

• Mercedes Lopez Rodriguez, University of South Carolina

Discussant

• Tom P McEnaney, University of California, Berkeley

Individual Presentations

• Dissonances of Porfirian Modernity in Tomóchic - Azucena Hernandez Ramirez, University of California Berkeley

• Inventing the Past through Sound: The Transformation of a 19th Century Novel into a Radio Drama in the 20th-century Colombia - Mercedes Lopez Rodriguez, University of South Carolina

• Peruvian Punks and Terrucos: The Presence of Punk Music in Rural Spaces of Revolution - Fritz Culp

• La ciudad de los pregones: el espacio sonoro en los relatos de viajeros en la ciudad de México durante el siglo XIX - Lluvia Mara Rodríguez Ayala, Concordia University