Germany in the Loud Twentieth Century: An Introduction
Florence Feiereisen and Alexandra Merley Hill
Abstract
The increasing popularity of the field of Sound Studies marks the sonic turn in cultural studies since the millennium. This compilation draws on a number of diverse fields, including journalism, history, cultural studies, music, architecture, and art history, to ask what Germany sounds like. The book is divided into five sections, organized thematically. The first section, “New Sounds in the Twentieth Century,” considers the rise of urban sound in the early 1900s and the radio play in the post-war years. Section two, “Defining Space through Sound,” focuses on the interactions between sound and ... More
The increasing popularity of the field of Sound Studies marks the sonic turn in cultural studies since the millennium. This compilation draws on a number of diverse fields, including journalism, history, cultural studies, music, architecture, and art history, to ask what Germany sounds like. The book is divided into five sections, organized thematically. The first section, “New Sounds in the Twentieth Century,” considers the rise of urban sound in the early 1900s and the radio play in the post-war years. Section two, “Defining Space through Sound,” focuses on the interactions between sound and space, particularly the very different soundscapes of the battlefield and the concert hall. Section three considers the divergent sounds of East and West Germany, through interviews and literature, and section four, “The Politics of Sound,” deals with music in socialist East Germany and the power structures inherent in acoustic surveillance. Finally, “Soundscapers of the Millennium” looks at sound art and hip-hop as two examples of the creative and political possibility of sound. Together the chapters consider the acoustic fingerprint of Germany, the cultural significance of sounds and space in the German context, spanning more than a century from the development and rise of sound-recording and sound-disseminating technologies in the early 1900s to today. This book is designed as an introduction to the topic and is accompanied by online teaching materials.
Keywords:
sound studies,
sonic turn,
acoustic surveillance,
space,
soundscapes,
teaching
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2011 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199759392 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2012 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199759392.001.0001 |
