English & Comparative Literary Studies - Events Calendar
STAFF RESEARCH SEMINAR: Dr Jonathan Skinner
"A Ghost is Spouted Up": Theoretical Approaches to Songs of the Humpback Whale -- with Soundings in "Animal Prosody": If Whales Sing like Catbirds, Can Poems Too?
In this talk, drawn from an ongoing writing project, in the wake of research conducted with the "sound" working group at the Cornell Society for the Humanities, I'll consider, first, some theoretical approaches to thinking about the culture and practice of recording, collecting, archiving, studying, and variously rendering "animal sounds"--drawn from the intersection of "sound studies" and the configuration of theories sometimes known as "posthumanities." (My case study is Roger Payne's early-seventies "platinum" recording, Song of the Humpback Whale.) In the second part of the talk, I'll offer some preliminary thoughts on what a "posthumanist prosody" might look and sound like, considering bird life in poetry by Emily Dickinson, Maggie O'Sullivan, and Nathaniel Mackey. I'll play you some animal sounds, and we'll talk about what whales, catbirds, and poems might share in common.