Race Sounds
The Art of Listening in African American Literature
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About This Book
We live in a world of talk. Yet Race Sounds argues that we need to listen moreânot just hear things, but actively listenâparticularly in relation to how we engage race, gender, and class differences. Forging new ideas about the relationship between race and sound, Furlonge explores how black artistsâincluding well-known figures such as writers Ralph Ellison and Zora Neale Hurston, and singers Bettye LaVette and Aretha Franklin, among othersâimagine listening. Drawing from a multimedia archive, Furlonge examines how many of the texts call on readers to "listen in print." In the process, she gives us a new way to read and interpret these canonical, aurally inflected texts, and demonstrates how listening allows us to engage with the sonic lives of difference as readers, thinkers, and citizens.
Intervening in discourses of African American and black feminist literatures, where sound and voice dominate, Furlonge shifts our attention to listening as an aural strategy of cultural, social, and civic engagement that not only enlivens how we read, write, and critique texts, but also informs how we might be more effective audiences for each other and against injustice in our midst. The result is a fascinating examination that brings new insights to African American literature and art, American literature, democratic philosophy, and sound studies.
Frequently asked questions
Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Series Page
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- âAttuned to It Allâ: Embodied Listening and Listening in Print
- One. âOur Literary Audienceâ: Listenership in Zora Neale Hurstonâs Their Eyes Were Watching God and Sterling Brownâs âMa Raineyâ
- Two. âTo Hear the Silence of Soundâ: Vibrational Listening in Ralph Ellisonâs Invisible Man
- Three. When Malindy Listens: Audiographic Archiving in Gayl Jonesâs Corregidora
- Four. âIf I Allow Myself to Listenâ: Slavery, Historical Thinking, and Aural Encounters in David Bradleyâs The Chaneysville Incident
- Five. âNew Ways to Make Us Listenâ: Aural Learning in the English Classroom
- âAll Living Is Listeningâ: Toward an Aurally Engaged Citizenry
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Series List