Sounding Out!

Episode I: The Greatest Sound in the Galaxy: Sound and Star Wars

Ever tried listening to a Star Wars movie without the sound? –IGN, 1999
Sound is 50 percent of the motion-picture experience. –George Lucas

In the radio dramatization of Return of the Jedi (1996), a hibernation sickness-blinded Han Solo can tell bounty hunter Boba Fett is in the same room with him just by smelling him.  Later this month, Solo:  A Star Wars Story (part of the Anthology films, and as you might expect from the title, a prequel to Han Solo’s first appearance in Star Wars:  A New Hope) may be able to shed some light on how Han developed this particular skill.

Later in that dramatization, we have to presume Han is able to accurately shoot a blaster blind by hearing alone.  Appropriately, then, sound is integral to Star Wars.  For every iconic image in the franchise—from R2D2 to Chewbacca to Darth Vader to X-Wing and TIE-fighters to the Millennium Falcon and the light sabers—there is a correspondingly iconic sound.  In musical terms, too, the franchise is exemplary. John Williams, Star Wars’ composer, won the most awards of his career for his Star Wars (1977) score, including an Oscar, a Golden Globe, a BAFTA, and three Grammys.  Not to mention Star Wars’ equally iconic diegetic music, such as the Mos Eisley Cantina band (officially known as Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes).

Without sound, there would be no Star Wars.  How else could Charles Ross’ One Man Star Wars Trilogy function?  In One Man Star Wars, Ross performs all the voices, music, and sound effects himself.  He needs no quick costume changes; indeed, in his rapid-fire, verbatim treatment, it is sound (along with a few gestures) that he uses to distinguish between characters.  His one-man show, in fact, echoes C-3PO’s performance of Star Wars to the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi, a story told in narration and sound effects far more than in any visuals.  “Translate the words, tell the story,” says Luke in the radio dramatization of this scene.  That is what sound does in Star Wars. 

I believe that the general viewing public is aware on a subconscious level of Star Wars’ impressive sound achievements, even if this is not always articulated as such.  As Rick Altman noted in 1992 in his four and a half film fallacies, the ontological fallacy of film—while not unchallenged—began life with André Bazin’s “The Ontology of the Photographic Image,” (1960) which argues that film cannot exist without image.  Challenging such an argument not only elevates silent film but also the discipline of film sound generally, so often regarded as an afterthought.  “In virtually all film schools,” Randy Thom wrote in 1999, “sound is taught as if it were simply a tedious and mystifying series of technical operations, a necessary evil on the way to doing the fun stuff.”

Film critic Pauline Kael wrote about Star Wars on original release in what Gianlucca Sergi terms a “harmful generalization” that its defining characteristic was its “loudness.”  Loud sound does not necessarily equal good sound in the movies, which audiences themselves can sometimes confuse.  “High fidelity recordings of gunshots and explosions, and well fabricated alien creature vocalizations” do not equal good sound design alone, as Thom has argued.  On the contrary, Star Wars’ achievements, Sergi posited, married technological invention with overall sound concept and refined if not defined the work of sound technicians and sound-conscious directors.

The reason why Star Wars is so successful aurally is because its creator, George Lucas, was invested in sound holistically and cohesively, a commitment that has carried through nearly every iteration of the franchise, and because his original sound designer, Ben Burtt, understood there was an art as well as a science to highly original, aurally “sticky” sounds.  Ontologically, then, Star Wars is a sound-based story, as reflected in the existence of the radio dramatizations (more on them later). This article traces the historical development of sound in not only the Star Wars films (four decades of them!) but also in other associated media, such as television and video games as well as examining aspects of Star Wars’ holistic sound design in detail.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away . . .

As Chris Taylor points out, George Lucas “loved cool sounds and sweeping music and the babble of dialogue more than he cared for dialogue itself.”  In 1974, Lucas was working on The Radioland Murders, a screwball comedy thriller set in the fictional 1930s radio station WKGL.  Radio, indeed, had already made a strong impression on Lucas, such that legendary “Border blaster” DJ Wolfman Jack played an integral part in Lucas’ film American Graffiti (1973).  As Marcus Hearn picks up the story, Lucas soon realized that The Radioland Murders were going nowhere (the film would eventually be made in 1994).  Lucas then turned his sound-conscious sensibilities in a different direction, in “The Star Wars” project upon which he had been ruminating since his film school days at the University of Southern California.  Retaining creative control, and a holistic interest in a defined soundworld, were two aspects Lucas insisted upon during the development of the project that would become Star Wars.  Lucas had worked with his contemporary at USC, sound designer and recordist Walter Murch, on THX 1138 (1971) and American Graffiti, and Murch would go on to provide legendary sound work for The Conversation (1974), The Godfather Part II (1974), and Apocalypse Now (1979). Murch was unavailable for the new project, so Lucas then asked producer Gary Kurtz to visit USC to evaluate emerging talent.

Pursuing a Masters degree in Film Production at USC was Ben Burtt, whose BA was in physics.  In Burtt, Lucas found a truly innovative approach to film sound which was the genesis of Star Wars’ sonic invention, providing, in Sergi’s words, “audiences with a new array of aural pleasures.”  Sound is embodied in the narrative of Star Wars.  Not only was Burtt innovative in his meticulous attention to “found sounds” (whereas sound composition for science fiction films has previously relied on electronic sounds), he applied his meticulousness in character terms.  Burtt said that Lucas and Kurtz, “just gave me a Nagra recorder and I worked out of my apartment near USC for a year, just going out and collecting sound that might be useful.”

Ben Burtt plays the twang of steel guy wires, which formed the basis of the many blaster sounds (re-creating the moment with Miki Hermann for a documentary). Image by Flickr User: Tom Simpson (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Inherent in this was Burtt’s relationship with sound, in the way he was able to construct a sound of an imaginary object from a visual reference, such as the light saber, described in Lucas’ script and also in concept illustrations by Ralph McQuarrie.  “I could kind of hear the sound in my head of the lightsabers even though it was just a painting of a lightsaber,” he said.  “I could really just sort of hear the sound maybe somewhere in my subconscious I had seen a lightsaber before.”  Burtt also shared with Lucas a sonic memory of sound from the Golden Age of Radio:  “I said, `All my life I’ve wanted to see, let alone work on, a film like this.’ I loved Flash Gordon and other serials, and westerns. I immediately saw the potential of what they wanted to do.”

But sir, nobody worries about upsetting a droid

Burtt has described the story of A New Hope as being told from the point of view of the droids (the robots).  While Lucas was inspired by Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress (1958) to create the characters of droids R2-D2 (“Artoo”) and C-3PO (“Threepio”), the robots are patently non-human characters.  Yet, it was essential to imbue them with personalities.  There have been cinematic robots since Maria, but Burtt uniquely used sound to convey not only these two robots’ personalities, but many others as well.  As Jeanne Cavelos argues, “Hearing plays a critical role in the functioning of both Threepio and Artoo.  They must understand the orders of their human owners.”  Previous robots had less personality in their voices; for example, Douglas Rain, the voice of HAL in 2001:  A Space Odyssey, spoke each word crisply with pauses. Threepio is a communications expert, with a human-like voice, provided by British actor (and BBC Radio Drama Repertory Company graduate) Anthony Daniels.  According to Hearn, Burtt felt Daniels should use his own voice, but Lucas was unsure, wanting an American used car salesman voice.  Burtt prevailed, creating in Threepio, vocally, “a highly strung, rather neurotic character,” in Daniels’ words, “so I decided to speak in a higher register, at the top of the lungs.”  (Indeed, in the Diné translation of Star Wars [see below], Threepio was voiced by a woman, Geri Hongeva-Camarillo, something that the audience seemed to find hilarious.)

Artoo was altogether a more challenging proposition.  As Cavelos puts it, “Artoo, even without the ability to speak English, manages to convey a clear personality himself, and to express a range of emotions.”  Artoo’s non-speech sounds still convey emotional content.  We know when Artoo is frightened;

when he is curious and friendly;

and when he is being insulting.

(And although subtitled scenes of Artoo are amusing, they are not in the least necessary.)  Artoo’s language was composed and performed by Burtt, derived from the communication of babies:

we started making little vocal sounds between each other to get a feeling for it.  And it dawned on us that the sounds we were making were not actually so bad.  Out of that discussion came the idea that the sounds a baby makes as it learns to walk would be a direction to go; a baby doesn’t form any words, but it can communicate with sounds.

The approach to Artoo’s aural communications became emblematic of all of the sounds made by machines in Star Wars, creating a non-verbal language, as Kris Jacobs calls it, the “exclusive province” of the Star Wars universe.

Powers of observation lie with the mind, Luke, not the eyes

According to Gianlucca Sergi, the film soundtrack is composed of sound effects, music, dialogue, and silence, all of which work together with great precision in Star Wars, to a highly memorable degree.  Hayden Christensen, who played Anakin Skywalker in Attack of the Clones (2002) and Revenge of the Sith (2005), noted that when filming light saber battles with Ewan McGregor (Obi-Wan Kenobi), he could not resist vocally making the sound effects associated with these weapons.

This a good illustration of how iconic the sound effects of Star Wars have become.  As Burtt noted above, he was stimulated by visuals to create the sound effects of the light sabers, though he was also inspired by the motor on a projector in the Department of Cinema at USC.  As Todd Longwell pointed out in Variety, the projector hum was combined with a microphone passed in front of an old TV to create the sound.  (It’s worth noting that the sounds of weapons were some of the first sound effects created in aural media, as in the case with Wallenstein, the first drama on German radio, in 1924, which featured clanging swords.)

If Burtt gave personality to robots through their aural communications, he created an innovative sound palette for far more than the light sabers in Star Wars.  In modifying and layering found sounds to create sounds corresponding to every aspect of the film world—from laser blasts (the sound of a hammer on an antenna tower guy wire) to the Imperial Walkers from Empire Strikes Back (modifying the sound of a machinist’s punch press combined with the sounds of bicycle chains being dropped on concrete)—he worked as meticulously as a (visual) designer to establish cohesion and impact.

Sergi argues that the sound effects in Star Wars can give subtle clues about the objects with which they are associated.  The sound of Imperial TIE fighters, which “roar” as they hurtle through space, was made from elephant bellows, and the deep and rumbling sound made by the Death Star is achieved through active use of sub-frequencies.  Meanwhile, “the rebel X-wing and Y-wing fighters attacking the Death Star, though small, emit a wider range of frequencies, ranging from the high to the low (piloted as they are by men of different ages and experience).”  One could argue that even here, Burtt has matched personality to machine.  The varied sounds of the Millennium Falcon (jumping into hyperspace, hyperdrive malfunction), created by Burtt by processing sounds made by existing airplanes (along with some groaning water pipes and a dentist’s drill), give it, in the words of Sergi, a much more “grown-up” sound than Luke’s X-Wing fighter or Princess Leia’s ship, the Tantive IV.  Given that, like its pilot Han Solo, the Falcon is weathered and experienced, and Luke and Leia are comparatively young and ingenuous, this sonic shorthand makes sense.

Millions of voices

Michel Chion argues that film has tended to be verbocentric, that is, that film soundtracks are produced around the assumption that dialogue, and indeed the sense of the dialogue rather than the sound, should be paramount and most easily heard by viewers.  Star Wars contradicts this convention in many ways, beginning with the way it uses non-English communication forms, not only the droid languages discussed above but also its plethora of languages for various denizens of the galaxy.  For example, Cavelos points out that Wookiees “have rather inexpressive faces yet reveal emotion through voice and body language.”

While the 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special may have many sins laid at its door, among them must surely be that the only Wookiee who actually sounds like a Wookiee is Chewbacca.  His putative family sound more like tauntauns.  Such a small detail can be quite jarring in a universe as sonically invested as Star Wars. 

While many of the lines in Star Wars are eminently quotable, the vocal performances have perhaps received less attention than they deserve.  As Starr A. Marcello notes, vocal performance can be extremely powerful, capitalizing on the “unique timbre and materiality that belong to a particular voice.”  For example, while Lucas originally wanted Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune to play Obi-Wan, Alec Guinness’ patrician Standard English Neutral accent clearly became an important part of the character. For example, when (Scottish) actor Ewan McGregor was cast to play the younger version of Obi-Wan, he began voice lessons to reproduce Guinness’ voice. Ian McDiarmid (also Scottish), a primarily a Shakespearean stage actor, was cast as arch-enemy the Emperor in Return of the Jedi, presumably on the quality of his vocal performance, and as such has portrayed the character in everything from Revenge of the Sith to Angry Birds Star Wars II. 

Sergi argues that Harrison Ford as Han Solo performs in a lower pitch but an unstable meter, a characterization explored in the radio dramatizations of A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi, when Perry King stands in for Ford.  By contrast, Mark Hamill voices Luke in two of the radio dramatizations, refining and intensifying his film performances.  Sergi argues that Hamill’s voice emphasizes youth:  staccato, interrupting/interrupted, high pitch.

And affectionately parodied here:

I would add warmth of tone to this list, perhaps illustrated nowhere better than in Hamill’s performance in episode 1 – “A Wind to Shake the Stars” of the radio dramatization, which depicts much of Luke’s story that never made it onscreen, from Luke’s interaction with his friends in Beggar’s Canyon to a zany remark to a droid (“I know you don’t know, you maniac!”). It will come as no surprise to the listeners of the radio dramatization that Hamill would find acclaim in voice work (receiving multiple nominations and awards).  In the cinematic version, Hamill’s performance is perhaps most gripping during the climactic scene in Empire Strikes Back when Darth Vader tells him:

According to Hamill, “what he was hearing from Vader that day were the words, ‘You don’t know the truth:  Obi-Wan killed your father.’  Vader’s real dialogue would be recorded in postproduction under conditions easier to control.”  More on that (and Vader) shortly.

It has been noted that Carrie Fisher (who was only nineteen when A New Hope was filmed) uses an accent that wavers between Standard North American and Standard Neutral English.  Fisher has explained this as her emulating experienced British star of stage and screen Peter Cushing (playing Grand Moff Tarkin).

However, the accents of Star Wars have remained a contentious if little commented upon topic, with most (if not all) Imperial staff from A New Hope onwards speaking Standard Neutral English (see the exception, stormtroopers, further on).  In production terms, naturally, this has a simple explanation.  In story terms, however, fans have advanced theories regarding the galactic center of the universe, with an allegorical impetus in the form of the American Revolution.  George Lucas, after all, is an American, so the heroic Rebels here have echoes with American colonists throwing off British rule in the 18th century, inspired in part because of their geographical remove from centers of Imperial rule like London.  Therefore, goes this argument, in Star Wars, worlds like Coruscant are peopled by those speaking Standard Neutral English, while those in the Outer Rim (the majority of our heroes) speak varieties of Standard North American.  Star Wars thus both advances and reinforces the stereotype that the Brits are evil.

It is perhaps appropriate, then, that James Earl Jones’ performance as Darth Vader has been noted for sounding more British than American, though Sergi emphasizes musicality rather than accent, the vocal quality over verbocentricity:

The end product is a fascinating mixture of two opposite aspects:  an extremely captivating, operatic quality (especially the melodic meter with which he delivers the lines) and an evil and cold means of destruction (achieved mainly through echoing and distancing the voice).

It is worth noting that Lucas originally wanted Orson Welles, perhaps the most famous radio voice of all time, to portray Vader, yet feared that Welles would be too recognizable.  That a different voice needed to emanate from behind Vader’s mask than the actor playing his body was evident from British bodybuilder David Prowse’s “thick West Country brogue.”  The effect is parodied in the substitution of a Cockney accent from Snatch (2000) for Jones’ majestic tones:

A Newsweek review of Jones in the 1967 play A Great White Hope argued that Jones had honed his craft through “Fourteen years of good hard acting work, including more Shakespeare than most British actors attempt.”  Sergi has characterized Jones’ voice as the most famous in Hollywood, in part because in addition to his prolific theatre back catalogue, Jones took bit parts and voiced commercials—“commercials can be very exciting,” he noted.  The two competing forces combined to create a memorable performance, though as others have noted, Jones is the African-American voice to the white actors who portrayed Anakin Skywalker (Clive Revill and Hayden Christensen), one British, one American.

Brock Peters, also African American and known for his deep voice, played Vader in the radio dramatizations.  Jennifer Stoever notes that in America, the sonic color line “historically contoured, identified, and marked mismatches between ‘sounding white’ and ‘looking black’” (231) whereas the Vader performances “sound black” and “look white.” Andrew Howe in his chapter “Star Wars in Black and White” notes the “tension between black outer visage and white interior identity [ . . ] Blackness is thus constructed as a mask of evil that can be both acquired and discarded.”

Like many of the most important aspects of Star Wars, Vader’s sonic presence is multi-layered, consisting in part of Jones’ voices manipulated by Burtt, as well as the sonic indicator of his presence:  his mechanized breathing”

The concept for the sound of Darth Vader came about from the first film, and the script described him as some kind of a strange dark being who is in some kind of life support system.  That he was breathing strange, that maybe you heard the sounds of mechanics or motors, he might be part robot, he might be part human, we really didn’t know.  [ . . .] He was almost like some robot in some sense and he made so much noise that we had to sort of cut back on that concept.

On radio, a character cannot be said to exist unless we hear from him or her; whether listening to the radio dramatizations or watching Star Wars with our eyes closed, we can always sense the presence of Vader by the sound of his breathing.  As Kevin L. Ferguson points out, “Is it accidental, then, that cinematic villains, troubling in their behaviour, are also often troubled in their breathing?”  As Kris Jacobs notes, “Darth Vader’s mechanized breathing can’t be written down”—it exists purely in a sonic state.

Your eyes can deceive you; don’t trust them

Music is the final element of Sergi’s list of what makes up the soundtrack, and John Williams’ enduring musical score is the most obvious of Star Wars’ sonic elements. Unlike “classical era” Hollywood film composers like Max Steiner or Erich Korngold who, according to Kathryn Kalinak, “entered the studio ranks with a fair amount of prestige and its attendant power, Williams entered as a contract musician working with ‘the then giants of the film industry,’” moving into a “late-romantic idiom” that has come to characterize his work.  This coincided with what Lucas envisioned for Star Wars, influenced as it was by 1930s radio serial culture.

Williams’ emotionally-pitched music has many elements that Kalinak argues link him with the classical score model:  unity, the use of music in the creation of mood and character; the privileging of music in moments of spectacle, the way music and dialogue are carefully mixed. This effect is exemplified in the opening of A New Hope, the “Main Title” or, as Dr Lehman has it (see below), “Main/Luke A.”  As Sergi notes, “the musical score does not simply fade out to allow the effects in; it is, rather literally, blasted away by an explosion (the only sound clearly indicated in the screenplay).”

As Kalinak points out, it was common in the era of Steiner and Korngold to score music for roughly three-quarters of a film, whereas by the 1970s, it was more likely to be one-quarter.  “Empire runs 127 minutes, and Williams initially marked 117 minutes of it for musical accompaniment”; while he used three themes from A New Hope, “the vast majority of music in The Empire Strikes Back was scored specifically for the film.”

Perhaps Williams’ most effective technique is the use of leitmotifs, derived from the work of Richard Wagner, and more complex than a simple repetition of themes.  Within leitmotifs, we hear the blending of denotative and connotative associations, as Matthew Bribitzer-Stull notes, “not just a musical labelling of people and things” but also, as Thomas S. Grey puts it, “a matter of musical memory, of recalling things dimly remembered and seeing what sense we can make of them in a new context.”  Bribitzer-Stull also notes the complexity of Williams’ leitmotif use, given that tonal music is given for both protagonists and antagonists, resisting the then-cliché of using atonal music for antagonists.  In Williams’ score, atonal music is used for accompanying exotic landscapes and fight or action scenes.  As Jonathan Broxton explains,

That’s how it works. It’s how the films maintain musical consistency, it’s how characters’ musical identities are established, and it offers the composer an opportunity to create interesting contrapuntal variations on existing ideas, when they are placed in new situations, or face off against new opponents.

Within the leitmotifs, Williams provides various variations and disruptions, such as the harmonic corruption when “the melody remains largely the same, but its harmonization becomes dissonant.” One of the most haunting ways in which Williams alters and reworks his leitmotifs is what Bribitzer-Stull calls “change of texture.”

Frank Lehman of Harvard has examined Williams’ leitmotifs in detail, cataloguing them based on a variety of meticulous criteria.  He has noted, for example, that some leitmotifs are used often, like “Rebel Fanfare” which has been used in Revenge of the Sith, A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and Rogue One.  Lehman particularly admires Williams’ skill and restraint, though, in reserving particular leitmotifs for very special occasions.  For example, “Luke & Leia,” first heard in Return of the Jedi (both film and radio dramatization) and not again until The Last Jedi:

While Williams’ use of leitmotifs is successful and evocative, not all of Star Wars’ music consists of leitmotifs, as Lehman points out; single, memorable pieces of music not heard elsewhere are still startlingly effective.

In the upcoming Solo, John Williams will contribute a new leitmotif for Han Solo, while all other material will be written and adapted by John Powell.  Williams has said in interview that “I don’t make a particular distinction between ‘high art’ and ‘low art.’  Music is there for everybody.  It’s a river we can all put our cups into, and drink it, and be sustained by it.”  The sounds of Star Wars have sustained it—and us—and perfectly illustrate George Lucas’ investment in the equal power of sound to vision in the cinematic experience.  I, for one, am looking forward to what new sonic gems may be unleashed as the saga continues.

On the first week of June, Leslie McMurtry will return with Episode II, focusing on shifts in sound in the newer films and multi-media forms of Star Wars, including radio and cartoons–and, if we are lucky, her take on Solo!

—

Featured Image made here: Enjoy!

—

 Leslie McMurtry has a PhD in English (radio drama) and an MA in Creative and Media Writing from Swansea University.  Her work on audio drama has been published in The Journal of Popular Culture, The Journal of American Studies in Turkey, and Rádio-Leituras.  Her radio drama The Mesmerist was produced by Camino Real Productions in 2010, and she writes about audio drama at It’s Great to Be a Radio Maniac.

—

tape reelREWIND!…If you liked this post, you may also dig:

The Magical Post-Horn: A Trip to the BBC Archive Centre in Perivale–Leslie McMurtry

Speaking American–Leslie McMurtry

Out of Sync: Gendered Location Sound Work in Bollywood–Priya Jaikumar  

Janneke Adema

Du soleil pour tous. L’énergie solaire au Sénégal: un droit, des droits, une histoire

Auteur : Sous la direction de Frédéric Caille et Mamadou Badji

Date de parution : 19 avril 2018 (Lancement à Dakar)

En cas de problème d’accès, écrire à info@editionscienceetbiencommun.org.

Résumé :

L’énergie solaire est une promesse de développement et de prospérité pour l’Afrique. Elle a été annoncée et expérimentée sur le continent dans un esprit de science ouverte et de « communs » technologiques et énergétiques il y a déjà près de soixante ans. Séchoirs et chauffe-eaux, pompes solaires et centrales électriques thermodynamiques : des pionniers ont développé et installé, dès la fin des années 1950, des techniques et des matériels en Afrique de l’Ouest et en particulier au Sénégal.

Le présent ouvrage, issu de deux journées d’études organisées à Dakar en mai 2016, rend compte pour la première fois, de manière particulièrement symbolique, de cette histoire et du futur de l’énergie solaire en Afrique. Il rassemble, dans une première partie, des témoignages d’acteurs et une mise en perspective sociohistorique large des politiques de l’énergie solaire en Afrique de l’Ouest sur un demi-siècle. Ce regard est complété par la réédition d’un texte de référence du professeur Abdou Moumouni Dioffo, pionnier nigérien de l’énergie solaire dès 1964.

Dans une seconde partie, cet ouvrage interroge également les prolongements actuels de l’énergie solaire en France et au Sénégal, en particulier son encadrement juridique et réglementaire. L’énergie solaire peut-elle ou doit-elle être considérée comme un « commun » ou un droit humain fondamental? Quels sont aujourd’hui les droits associés à l’énergie solaire au Sénégal? Quels enseignements tirer d’une comparaison avec le corpus juridique en la matière tel qu’il existe en France?

Associant juristes français et sénégalais, et spécialistes de la sociologie et des politiques de l’énergie, cet ouvrage se veut au final une invitation et un outil pour poursuivre les recherches sur l’histoire et le droit de l’énergie solaire en Afrique.

Illustration de couverture : design de Kate McDonnell, photographie d’Alexandre Mouthon

Imprimé à Chambéry, Dakar et Québec, 1er trimestre 2018, ce livre est sous licence Creative Commons CC-BY 4-0.

  • ISBN ePub : 978-2-924661-34-5
  • ISBN du livre imprimé : 978-2-924661-38-3

Pour acheter une version imprimée du livre en France ou au Canada par chèque ou virement bancaire : écrire à info@editionscienceetbiencommun.org.

Pour le commander en ligne (des frais de port de 9 $ s’ajouteront) :


Version papier ou ePub



Sounding Out!

SO! Reads: Janet Borgerson and Jonathan Schroeder’s Designed For Hi Fi Living

According to the latest data from Nielson and the RIAA, vinyls are back. The old fashioned form now outsells CDs – but few have remarked on the fact that, unlike CDs and more like good little children, they are meant to be seen and not heard.  At Ikea, for example, you can now easily buy frames sized for LP covers, which are clearly intended for the wall, rather than the turntable.

LP covers are art, but they also make far more intimate statements about identity, politics, and self-presentation, as you’ll immediately realize if you ask yourself which, of your vast collection, you would like to represent you to the general public via the your living room decor. Designed For Hi Fi Living: the Vinyl LP in Midcentury America (MIT Press, 2017), by Janet Borgerson and Jonathan Schroeder, takes this idea and runs with it. Beautifully packaged with creamy matte illustrations accompanied by short visual rhetorical analyses, it belongs on the one-of-a-kind coffee tables of the leisured classes, and this is particularly fitting, as its concept is that album covers from the mid-century can tell us a lot about how white middle class Americans wanted to picture themselves.

Music For Hi Fi Living is not about sound, per se, but about the role sound may play, or have played, in the past. As a form of material culture, it’s hard to image a better trove from which to uncover the secret life of the white American middle-class. The record covers analyzed here are taken from a single collection, many of them drawn from the 12 Record set on RCA from which the book takes its title, and all of them are bizarrely kitsch.

Divided into two sections called Home and Away (side one and side two, as it were) the book makes the argument that midcentury lives were envisioned, honed, and practiced through this special form of consumption of pre-packaged ideas of “self” and “Other.” Many use strange colors and unknown fonts, surrounding drab photos of a long-gone world of the 1950s. In them, ‘sophisticated’ men and women look dowdy and frightened, while beach scenes and urban landscapes alike capture the pasts’ unlikeness to the present. On covers like those for Fiesta Linda, Your Musical Trip Around The Island of Hawai’i, and Havana Holiday, the exotic is conveyed through its utter mundanity, while ‘home life’ (on records like March Around the Breakfast Table, and Songs For An Evening At Home) is rendered as taking place in entirely private, contained, domestic spaces.

If Hi Fi has a flaw, it is its failure to grapple with the implications of race, class and ethnicity that this entire collection exhibits. For example, the “Away” section centers America, and whiteness, as its world view: though no doubt appropriate to this collector’s experience of this era, it does seem like the authors could have cast a slightly more critical eye on the way the records situate themselves and their listeners. Too often, as the authors note dispassionately, the discs contain western-influenced pop music, despite having covers that utilized shots of Zulu warriors in traditional dress (“African Zulus!”) or Watusi ceremonial dancers (“Kasongo!”). The exclamation points in these titles alone tell a complex and dispiriting tale.

Overall, Music for Hi-Fi Living draws a relationship between sight, sound, and music consumption that encourages us to reconsider in our contemporary moment, now that digitized music is streamed directly into our ears. “We can’t actually see the music we hear,” as Daniel Miller writes in the  book’s forward. This is undoubtedly true, which is why the visual component of its past incarnations is so important to revisit, although we may also wonder “did we hear what we thought we saw?” One wonders what the parallel version of this book will be, fifty years from now. Spotify playlists won’t look half so good.

—

Gina Arnold is the editor of the Oxford Handbook of Punk Rock, the author of the 33 1/3rd book Exile In Guyville (Bloomsbury 2014) and the forthcoming entry in the New American Canon series, Half a Million Strong; Rock Festivals From Woodstock to Coachella (University of Iowa Press 2018).

—

REWIND!…If you liked this post, you may also dig:

The Sound of Hippiesomething, or Drum Circles at #OccupyWallStreet –Gina Arnold

SO! Reads: Dolores Inés Casillas’s ¡Sounds of Belonging!–Monica De La Torre

SO! Reads: Roshanak Khesti’s Modernity’s Ear–Shayna Silverstein

Janneke Adema

Les Classiques des sciences sociales : 25 ans de partage des savoirs dans la francophonie

Sous la direction d’Émilie Tremblay et Ricarson Dorcé

Date de parution : 9 mai 2018 (lancement à l’Université du Québec à Chicoutimi)

En cas de problème d’accès, écrire à info@editionscienceetbiencommun.org.

Résumé :

La bibliothèque numérique francophone Les Classiques des sciences sociales fête ses 25 ans en 2018. Que s’est-il passé au cours de ces 25 années? Comment la bibliothèque s’est-elle construite? Quels sont les choix qui s’offrent à elle actuellement et pour l’avenir? Cet ouvrage collectif a un premier but : raconter, au fil de plusieurs récits et témoignages, la vie autour de ce projet exceptionnel : les motivations et idéaux derrière sa création, les hommes et les femmes impliqués à différentes périodes et son immense impact dans la francophonie. Il constitue aussi un hommage au fondateur des Classiques, Jean-Marie Tremblay, ainsi qu’à toutes les personnes qui ont œuvré au développement de cette bibliothèque numérique, en particulier l’équipe internationale de bénévoles.

Cet ouvrage collectif propose également plusieurs chapitres qui visent à réfléchir aux notions, questions et pratiques au cœur du projet des Classiques des sciences sociales, ainsi qu’aux enjeux contemporains des bibliothèques numériques : l’accès libre aux publications scientifiques, la gestion des données, la numérisation et la préservation du patrimoine scientifique, la justice sociale, les communs numériques, la justice cognitive et le patrimoine numérique. Ces contributions, par leur diversité et leur qualité, enrichissent la réflexion sur l’avenir des Classiques des sciences sociales, mettent en lumière des possibilités inexplorées et permettent de faire des liens avec d’autres initiatives et projets similaires.

Illustration de couverture : design de Kate McDonnell, photo d’Émilie Tremblay

  • ISBN ePub : 978-2-924661-54-3
  • ISBN du livre imprimé : : 978-2-924661-52-9

Pour acheter le livre en France ou au Canada, par chèque ou virement bancaire : écrire à info@editionscienceetbiencommun.org.

Pour le commander en ligne (des frais de port de 9 $ s’ajouteront) :


Version papier ou ePub




Sounding Out!

Playin’ Native and Other Iterations of Sonic Brownface in Hollywood Representations of Dolores Del Río

Mexican actress Dolores Del Río is admired for her ability to break ground; her dance skills allowed her to portray roles not offered to many women of color early in the 20th Century. One of her most popular roles was in the movie Ramona (1928), directed by Edwin Carewe. Her presence in the movie made me think about sonic representations of mestizaje and indigeneity through the characters portrayed by Del Río. According to  Priscilla Ovalle, in Dance and the Hollywood Latina: Race, Sex and Stardom (2010), Dolores del Río was representative of Mexican nationhood while she was a rising star in Hollywood. Did her portrayals reinforce ways of hearing and viewing mestizos and First Nation people in the American imaginary? Is it sacrilegious to examine the Mexican starlet through sonic brownface? I explore these questions through two films, Ramona and Bird of Paradise (1932, directed by King Vidor), where Dolores del Río plays a mestiza and a Polynesian princess, respectively, to understand the deeper impact she had in Hollywood through expressions of sonic brownface.

Before I delve into analysis of these films and the importance of Ramona the novel and film adaptions, I wish to revisit the concept of sonic brownface I introduced here in SO! in 2013. Back then, I argued that the movie Nacho Libre and Jack Black’s characterization of “Nacho” is sonic brownface: an aural performativity of Mexicanness as imagined by non-Mexicans. Jennifer Stoever, in The Sonic Color Line (2017), postulates that how we listen to particular body(ies) are influenced by how we see them. The notion of sonic brownface facilitates a deeper examination of how ethnic and racialized bodies are not just seen but heard.

Picture of Del Rio as Luana in BIRDS OF PARADISE, available in the public domain.

Through my class lectures this past year, I realized there is more happening in the case of Dolores del Río, in that sonic brownface can also be heard in the impersonation of ethnic roles she portrayed. In the case of Dolores del Río, though Mexicana, her whiteness helps Hollywood directors to continue portraying mestizos and native people in ways that they already hear them while asserting that her portrayal helps lend authenticity due to her nationality. In the two films I discuss here, Dolores del Río helps facilitate these sonic imaginings by non-Mexicans, in this case the directors and agent who encouraged her to take on such roles. Although a case can be made that she had no choice, I imagine that she was quite astute and savvy to promote her Spanish heritage, which she credits for her alabaster skin. This also opens up other discussions about colorism prevalent within Latin America.

First, let us focus on the appeal of Helen Hunt Jackson’s Ramona (1884), as it is here that the cohabitation of Scots, Spanish, Mestizos, and Native people are first introduced to the American public in the late 19th century. According to Evelyn I. Banning, in 1973’s Helen Hunt Jackson, the author wanted to write a novel that brought attention to the plight of Native Americans. The novel highlights the new frontier of California shortly after the Mexican American War. Though the novel was critically acclaimed, many folks were more intrigued with “… the charm of the southern California setting and the romance between a half-breed girl raised by an aristocratic Spanish family and an Indian forced off his tribal lands by white encroachers.” A year after Ramona was published, Jackson died and a variety of Ramona inspired projects that further romanticized Southern California history and its “Spanish” past surged. For example, currently in Hemet, California there is the longest running outdoor “Ramona” play performed since 1923. Hollywood was not far behind as it produced two silent-era films, starring Mary Pickford and Dolores del Río.

The charm of the novel Ramona is that it reinforces a familiar narrative of conquest with the possibility of all people co-existing together. As Philip Deloria reminds us in Playing Indian (1999), “The nineteenth-century quest for a self-identifying national literature … [spoke] the simultaneous languages of cultural fusion and violent appropriation” (5). The nation’s westward expansion and Jackson’s own life reflected the mobility and encounters settlers experienced in these territories. Though Helen Hunt Jackson had intended to bring more attention to the mistreatment of native people in the West, particularly the abuse of indigenous people by the California Missions, the fascination of the Spanish speaking people also predominated the American imaginary. To this day we still see in Southern California the preference of celebrating the regions Spanish past and subduing the native presence of the Chumash and Tongva. Underlying Jackson’s novel and other works like Maria Amparo Ruiz De Burton The Squatter and the Don (1885) is their critique of the U.S. and their involvement with the Mexican American War. An outcome of that war is that people of Mexican descent were classified as white due to the signing of Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and were treated as a class apart. (See Michael Olivas’ anthology, Colored Men and Hombres Aqui from 2006 and Ignacio M. García, White but not Equal from 2008). These novels and films reflect the larger dominant narrative of whiteness and its relationship to nation building. Through Pickford’s and del Río’s portrayals of Ramona they reinforce the whiteness of mestizaje.

Screenshot from RAMONA (1910). Here, Ramona (played by Mary Pickford) finds out that she has “Indian blood.”

In 1910, Mary Pickford starred in D.W. Griffith’s short film adaptation of Ramona as the titular orphan of Spanish heritage. Henry B. Walthall played Alessandro, the Native American, in brownface to mimic physical attributes of the native Chumash of Southern California. Griffith also wanted to add authenticity by filming in Camulas, Ventura County, the land of the Chumash and where Jackson based her novel. The short is a sixteen-minute film that takes viewers through the encounter between Alessandro and Ramona and their forbidden love, as she was to be wedded to Felipe, a Californio. There is a moment in the movie when Ramona is told she has “Indian blood”. Exalted, Mary Pickford says “I’m so happy” (6:44-6:58). Their short union celebrates love of self and indigeneity that reiterates Jackson’s compassionate plea of the plight of native people. In the end, Alessandro dies fighting for his homeland, and Ramona ends up with Felipe. Alessandro, Ramona, and Felipe represent the archetypes in the Westward expansion. None had truly the power but if mestizaje is to survive best it serve whiteness.

Poster of 1928’s RAMONA, under fair use

Edwin Carewe’s rendition of Ramona in 1928 was United Artists’ first film release with synchronized sound and score. Similar to the Jazz Singer in 1927, are pivotal in our understanding of sonic brownface. Through the use of synchronized scored music, Hollywood’s foray into sound allowed itself creative license to people of color and sonically match it to their imaginary of whiteness. As I mentioned in my 2013 post, the era of silent cinema allowed Mexicans in particular, to be “desirable and allowed audiences to fantasize about the man or woman on the screen because they could not hear them speak.” Ramona was also the first feature film for a 23-year-old Dolores del Río, whose beauty captivated audiences. There was much as stake for her and Carewe. Curiously, both are mestizos, and yet the Press Releases do not make mention of this, inadvertently reinforcing the whiteness of mestizaje: Del Río was lauded for her Spanish heritage (not for being Mexican), and Carewe’s Chickasaw ancestry was not highlighted. Nevertheless, the film was critically acclaimed with favorable reviews such as Mordaunt Hall’s piece in the New York Times published May 15, 1928. He writes, “This current offering is an extraordinarily beautiful production, intelligently directed and, with the exception of a few instances, splendidly acted.” The film had been lost and was found in Prague in 2005. The Library of Congress has restored it and is now celebrated as a historic film, which is celebrating its 90th anniversary on May 20th.

In Ramona, Dolores del Río shows her versatility as an actor, which garners her critical acclaim as the first Mexicana to play a starring role in Hollywood. Though Ramona is not considered a talkie, the synchronized sound comes through in the music. Carewe commissioned a song written by L. Wolfe Gillbert with music by Mabel Wayne, that was also produced as an album. The song itself was recorded as an instrumental ballad by two other musicians, topping the charts in 1928.

In the movie, Ramona sings to Allessandro. As you will read in the lyrics, it is odd that it is not her co-star Warner Baxter who sings, as the song calls out to Ramona. Del Río sounds angelic as the music creates high falsettos. The lyrics emphasize English vernacular with the use of “o’er” and “yonder” in the opening verse. There are moments in the song where it is audible that Del Río is not yet fluent speaking, let alone singing in English. This is due to the high notes, particularly in the third verse, which is repeated again after the instrumental interlude.

I dread the dawn
When I awake to find you gone
Ramona, I need you, my own

Each time she sings “Ramona” and other areas of the song where there is an “r”, she adds emphasis with a rolling “r,” as would be the case when speaking Spanish. Through the song it reinforces aspects of sonic brownface with the inaudible English words, and emphasis on the rolling “rrrr.” In some ways, the song attempts to highlight the mestiza aspects of the character. The new language of English spoken now in the region that was once a Spanish territory lends authenticity through Dolores del Río’s portrayal. Though Ramona is to be Scottish and Native, she was raised by a Spanish family named Moreno, which translates to brown or darker skin. Yes, you see the irony too.

United Artists Studio Film Still, under Fair Use

Following Del Río’s career, she plays characters from different parts of the world, usually native or Latin American. As Dolores del Río gained more popularity in Hollywood she co-starred in several movies such as Bird of Paradise (1932), directed by King Vidor, in which she plays a Polynesian Princess. Bird of Paradise focuses on the love affair between the sailor, played by Joel McCrea, and herself. The movie was controversial as it was the first time we see a kiss between a white male protagonist with a non-Anglo female, and some more skin, which caught the eye of The Motion Picture Code commission. Though I believe the writers attempted to write in Samoan, or some other language of the Polynesian islands, I find that her speech may be another articulation of sonic brownface. Beginning with the “talkies,” Hollywood continued to reiterate stereotypical representations though inaccurate music or spoken languages.

In the first encounter between the protagonists, Johnny and Luana, she greets him as if inviting him to dance. He understands her. He is so taken by her beauty that he “rescues” her to live a life together on a remote island. Though they do not speak the same language at first it does not matter because their love is enough. This begins with the first kiss. When she points to her lips emphasizing kisses, which he gives her more of. The movie follows their journey to create a life together but cannot be fully realized as she knows the sacrifice she must pay to Pele.

I do not negate the ground breaking work that Dolores del Río accomplished while in Hollywood. It led her to be an even greater star when she returned to Mexico. However, even her star role as Maria Candelaria bares some examination through sonic brownface. It is vital to examine how the media reinforces the imaginary of native people as not well spoken or inarticulate, and call out the whiteness of mestizaje as it inadvertently eliminates the presence of indigeneity and leaves us listening to sonic brownface.

—

reina alejandra prado saldivar is an art historian, curator, and adjunct lecturer in the Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program and Liberal Studies Department at CSULA and in the Critical Studies Program at CALArts. As a cultural activist, she focused her earlier research on Chicano cultural production and the visual arts. Prado is also a poet and performance artist known for her interactive durational work Take a Piece of my Heart as the character Santa Perversa (www.santaperversa.com) and is currently working on her first solo performance entitled Whipped!

—

Featured image: Screenshot from “Ramona (1928) – Brunswick Hour Orchestra”

—

REWIND!…If you liked this post, you may also dig:

Afecto Caribeño / Caribbean Affect in Desi Arnaz’s “Babalú Aye” – reina alejandra prado saldivar 

SO! Amplifies: Shizu Saldamando’s OUROBOROS–Jennifer Stoever

SO! Reads: Dolores Inés Casillas’s ¡Sounds of Belonging! – Monica de la Torre

Sounding Out!

SO! Podcast #67: Listening In with Sounding Out! (feat. Claire Cooley)

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD:  Listening In with Sounding Out! (feat. Claire Cooley)

SUBSCRIBE TO THE SERIES VIA ITUNES

ADD OUR PODCASTS TO YOUR STITCHER FAVORITES PLAYLIST

Join host James Tlsty in the second installment of his podcast miniseries–“Listening In with Sounding Out!” In this miniseries Tlsty and co-host Shauna Bahssin dig deep into the archives of Sounding Out! and interview authors to get a sense of what they were thinking as they wrote their essays. In this episode Tlsty and Bahssin interview the amazing Claire Cooley discussing her SO! piece from October 2017, “Gender and the First Sound Films in 1930s Bombay”

–

James Tlsty is a Junior studying English and Philosophy, Politics and Law (PPL) at Binghamton University. James draws from literature and philosophy for pragmatic applications in social policy and activism. James is an active champion of the arts, as evidenced by his work with on-campus art initiative OPEN, a hybrid art gallery and open mic. He is also the resident Pop Music Department Director and an E-Board member at WHRW, where he is a registered radio engineer and programmer.

Shauna Bahssin is a junior double-majoring in English and art history. She currently serves as the managing editor for Binghamton University’s student newspaper, Pipe Dream, after maintaining the position of copy desk chief for three semesters. Outside of the paper, she helps supervise student fundraising initiatives through the Binghamton Telefund, and she hopes to work within the field of arts advancement after she graduates.

Claire Cooley is a PhD student in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests center on overlapping Middle East and South Asia film histories. Claire’s dissertation project traces connections between Egyptian, Iranian, and Indian cinemas with a focus on the 1930s-1960s, and uses sound as a framework to capture the dynamics of cinematic circulations across this contiguous region. In 2010, she received her BA from Tufts University, and from 2010-2013 she lived in Cairo, Egypt where she pursued a project translating, mapping, and blogging about graffiti during the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. Claire also teaches Persian and Arabic.

—

tape reelREWIND! . . .If you liked this post, you may also dig:

SO! Podcast #66: Listening In with Sounding Out! (feat. Marlen Rios) — James Tlsty and Shauna Bahssin

Sounding Out! Podcast #65: Listening In with Sounding Out! (feat. Jenny Stoever) – James Tlsty and Shauna Bahssin

Sounding Out! Podcast #13: Sounding Shakespeare in S(e)oul – Brooke A. Carlson

Janneke Adema

Abdou Moumouni Dioffo (1929-1991). Le précurseur nigérien de l’énergie solaire

Auteur : Sous la direction de Frédéric Caille

Date de parution : 7 avril 2018 (lancement à Niamey)

En cas de problème d’accès, écrire à info@editionscienceetbiencommun.org.

Résumé :

Issu du livre Du soleil pour tous. L’énergie solaire au Sénégal : un droit, des droits, une histoire (2018), cet ouvrage est un hommage au travail du professeur Abdou Moumouni Dioffo, dont la portée et le caractère précurseur sont plus sensibles que jamais. Promouvoir les usages multiformes et le développement immédiat de l’énergie solaire en Afrique, perfectionner les procédés de conversion et les matériels, défendre la priorité des investissements de recherche et de formation : tels furent les trois grands axes de l’action pionnière du physicien nigérien Abdou Moumouni Dioffo, premier grand spécialiste internationalement reconnu de l’énergie solaire issu du continent le plus ensoleillé de la planète.

Ce livre contient :

  • une réédition des deux articles d’Abdou Moumouni Dioffo « L’énergie solaire dans les pays africains » (1964) et « L’éducation scientifique et technique dans ses rapports avec le développement en Afrique » (1969).
  • une reprise de deux textes d’Albert-Michel Wright, ingénieur héliotechnicien et ancien collaborateur d’Abdou Moumouni Dioffo qui fut son successeur à la direction de l’Office Nigérien de l’Énergie Solaire (ONERSOL).
  • un portfolio d’une trentaine de photographies inédites de Marc Jacquet-Pierroulet, ancien Volontaire Français du Progrès au laboratoire d’Abdou Moumouni Dioffo à Niamey de 1970 à 1972.
  • un texte de Salamatou Doudou sur la vie d’Abdou Moumouni Dioffo.

Puissent les jeunes d’Afrique et d’ailleurs être nombreux à suivre son exemple !

Illustration de couverture : design de Kate McDonnell, pour la collection Mémoires des Suds

  • ISBN ePub : 978-2-924661-48-2
  • ISBN du livre imprimé : : 978-2-924661-46-8

Pour acheter le livre en France ou au Canada, par chèque ou virement bancaire : écrire à info@editionscienceetbiencommun.org.

Pour le commander en ligne (des frais de port de 9 $ s’ajouteront) :

Sounding Out!

SO! Amplifies: Basilica Hudson’s 24-HOUR DRONE

 
SO! Amplifies. . .a highly-curated, rolling mini-post series by which we editors hip you to cultural makers and organizations doing work we really really dig.  You’re welcome!
—

Twenty-four hours of uninterrupted sound: this was the auditory aspiration of Melissa Auf der Maur and Tony Stone–co-founders of Basilica Hudson–and their houseguest, Bob van Heur, co-founder of Le Guess Who? festival in the Netherlands. Basilica Hudson, a nonprofit artistic collective in downstate New York, has a proven history of adventurous projects that stretch the limits of the audience’s expectations. From noon on April 28, 2018 to noon on April 29, they will be producing a project that’s become something of a classic for the group to kick off their season: a 24-hour sound drone.

“It’s a really singular event, and you really come out of it being transformed,” said Kate Hewett, the program marketing and communications manager for Basilica Hudson. “It’s so unusual to be surrounded by sound in a long-form situation like that. It’s rare that you get to experience the interplay between different kind of artists and performances … it’s one of our favorite events.”

This is the third year that Basilica Hudson had compiled artists from the drone, and each year the lineup is changed. The project is sourced to both local and international sound artists, via a process that includes both an open call submissions period as well as staff reaching out to composers and collectives individually. The product is an experience that is both sonic and tactile; while the drone roves through the space and fills the converted factory with sound, participants are encouraged to bring in mats or chairs and stay through the entire 24-hour period. Some of the artists who will be played through the drone include Bill Brovold and the Mystical Miniature Orchestra, Hudson Boys Club and New London Drone Orchestra.

“The open call submissions period is really key to making the 24-HOUR DRONE happen,” Hewett said. The vision behind it is to always access new artist who haven’t played here previously, maybe artists who haven’t played in the Hudson Valley before as well as being able to showcase the incredible local talent that is offered in the region … from there, it’s really a case of weaving together a multidisciplinary lineup. The aim is to cross genres and be able to showcase lots of different kinds of artists who are all working within the rough framework of drone.”

While no live performances fit the bill of the event, there are 24-hour projects that happen in tandem with the drone. For one, a weaver will sit in Basilica’s space and use the loom for 24 hours. In another example, healers will enter the premises to perform 24-hour reiki.

“People are free to come and go as they wish — you don’t have to commit to the full 24 hours. But a lot of people do come, bring a yoga mat, and camp out for the whole time,” Hewett said. “The enjoyment and the really immersive experience is what it’s about, and what’s most important.”

Basilica Hudson is located in a solar-powered reclaimed 1880s industrial factory on the waterfront of upstate New York city of Hudson.

This season, the 24-HOUR DRONE will not be the only sound-related exhibition at Basilica Hudson. From Sept. 14 to 16, the collective will host Basilica Soundscape, a weekend of live music and art. The lineup has yet to be announced.

—

All images courtesy of Basilica Hudson

—

Shauna Bahssin is a junior at Binghamton University who double-majors in English and art history. She currently serves as managing for the student newspaper, Pipe Dream, and has written for its news and arts and culture sections in the past. Outside of the paper, she is involved with the university’s fundraising initiatives through the Binghamton Telefund, and she hopes to work within the field of arts development and advancement after she graduates.

—

REWIND!…If you liked this post, you may also dig:tape reel

SO! Amplifies: Anne Le Troter’s “Bulleted List”–Shauna Bahssin

SO! Amplifies: Shizu Saldamando’s OUROBOROS

SO! Amplifies: Mendi+Keith Obadike and Sounding Race in America

SO! Amplifies: Feminatronic

Janneke Adema

Appel : Non-violence et politique : un compagnon pédagogique

Projet d’une anthologie sur la non-violence et la politique, sous la direction éditoriale de Cécile Dubernet (pour la version francophone) et de Justin Scherer (pour la version anglophone) de l’Institut catholique de Paris. Des versions dans d’autres langues sont également envisagées.

Ce projet vise à construire un outil unique, multilingue à terme, regroupant des analyses d’écrits connus et moins connus, afin d’éclairer les relations complexes entre politique et non-violence qui sont trop souvent négligées en science politique. Il vise également à mobiliser les chercheurs et chercheuses (universitaires ou non) qui s’intéressent au sujet, mais qui sont souvent dispersés sur différentes disciplines et différents continents.

Le livre s’adressera à des enseignant.e.s, des enseignant.e.s-chercheur.e.s, des formateurs et formatrices qui souhaitent explorer les interfaces et les interactions entre la non-violence et la politique avec leurs étudiant.e.s. Il aura également pour audience des étudiant.e.s qui s’intéressent à la non-violence et se demandent pourquoi le sujet est si rarement abordé en salle de classe ou en séminaire universitaire. Enfin, les responsables espèrent que cette collection de textes permettra aux activistes non-violents d’explorer les racines conceptuelles et historiques de leur pratique, voire de leur art.

Calendrier

Les propositions de contribution à ce projet sont attendues pour le 30 juillet 2018 en français ou en anglais. D’un maximum de 5000 caractères, chaque proposition présentera brièvement un document (extrait de livre, transcription de discours, production pamphlétaire, etc..), son/ses auteur.e.s, l’importance historique de ce document et l’intérêt qu’il y aurait à en inclure une analyse dans une anthologie sur la non-violence et la politique. Il est possible de proposer plusieurs contributions (textes). Un bref CV de l’auteur.e de la proposition est également attendu.

Si une telle collection de textes ne peut faire l’impasse d’auteurs classiques sur le sujet (Gandhi, King, Havel, Sharp etc.), les propositions concernant des écrits/auteur.e.s peu connus seront examinés avec grand intérêt. De même, des textes en langues minoritaires, mais qui permettent de mieux comprendre comment ces thèmes se déclinent localement, sont les bienvenus. Enfin des propositions de cas d’études (courtes analyses d’événements politiques non violents) peuvent également être déposées auprès des éditeurs :

Cécile Dubernet c.dubernet@icp.fr

Justin Scherer justin.k.scherer@gmail.com

Un retour sera fait aux auteur.e.s fin octobre 2018. Les contributions finales d’un maximum de 15000 caractères, incluant les citations et extraits du texte étudié (8000 caractères pour les cas d’étude) sont attendues pour fin janvier 2019 en vue d’une publication dans le courant de l’été 2019.

Les valeurs et le projet éditorial des Éditions science et bien commun

Merci de les lire attentivement sur cette page.

Les consignes d’écriture sont sur cette page.

Argumentaire détaillé

La non-violence ne fait généralement pas partie des programmes scolaires ou universitaires en sciences sociales, et ce pour plusieurs raisons : tout d’abord c’est un sujet transdisciplinaire puisant dans des champs aussi divers que l’éducation, la sociologie, la science politique, la psychologie, l’histoire, la théologie. C’est donc un thème qui s’insère mal dans un monde de spécialistes, monde dans lequel le savoir est découpé en disciplines. Deuxièmement, ses racines et ses liens forts avec les pensées religieuses et spirituelles en font un sujet d’enseignement délicat, incitant les enseignants à se cantonner à des exemples historiques. Troisièmement, le fait qu’en politique la non-violence soit communément associée à des leaders hauts en couleurs (Gandhi, Martin Luther King, le Dalai Lama..) encourage une histoire quelque peu mythifiée car centrée sur ces personnages historiques (et sympathiques !) plutôt que sur des processus politiques. Enfin, il faut aussi reconnaître que la Science politique elle-même est jeune et cherche parfois encore sa place entre les disciplines majeures dont elle est issue : le droit, la sociologie, la philosophie et l’histoire comme laboratoire. Pour exister en tant que discipline, la science politique s’est structurée autour de l’étude du pouvoir et surtout de l’État. Or l’accent mis sur l’État et sa construction repose sur l’axiome de la centralité de la violence, de son efficacité au moins sur le court ou moyen terme, de l’importance de son monopole etc. L’étude de processus sciemment non-violents reste donc marginale dans la discipline.

En science politique, la non-violence est donc abordée à la marge, de biais, à travers des reformulations ou des concepts plus précis ou spécialisés. Quand on en parle, l’accent est mis sur certaines dimensions : la grève de la faim, la résistance civile, l’histoire de Martin Luther King ou du Tibet. Si l’on trouve d’excellentes études philosophiques, historiques ou sociologiques, il n’existe pas à ce jour d’anthologie francophone combinant textes historiques, analyses scientifiques et cas d’études. Plus rares encore sont les livres associant lectures et réflexions à des exercices, voire à des méditations. Cette absence s’entend car il est difficile pour tout chercheur de faire d’un concept transversal et qui porte la marque de l’utopie son objet de recherche et de transmission. Personne ne veut du label ‘rêveur’ et encore moins du label ‘activiste’ en Science politique. Ce sont des obstacles majeurs à toute quête d’insertion dans une communauté scientifique universitaire très compétitive.

Pourtant, en ce début de 21ième siècle, nous avons de bonnes raisons d’étudier sérieusement la non-violence et son rapport au politique. La cohérence théorique du concept, tel que formulé par ses précurseurs et concepteurs (tels La Boétie, Gandhi, Havel, Sharp ou encore Suu Kyi) est remarquable. Par ailleurs, c’est une des forces historiques les plus puissantes que nous ayons connues depuis plus un siècle (Semelin 2011, Chenoweth et Stephan 2011). De plus, la non-violence a été utilisée sous de multiples formes et dans des contextes très variés avec des conséquences très variables (Roberts et Ash, 2011). Elle n’est ni de l’est, ni de l’ouest, ni spécifiquement du nord ou particulièrement du sud ; elle a été utilisée tant par des hommes que par des femmes, par les pauvres comme par les riches. Elle est au cœur de certains des moments les plus inspirants de l’histoire du monde tels le mouvement Greenbelt, la chute du mur de Berlin ou celle de Milosevic en Serbie en 2000. Mais si le concept est puissant, il est aussi complexe et, trop simplifié, peut participer de catastrophes humaines comme récemment au Yémen ou en Syrie. C’est donc une approche de la vie politique qui mérite discussions, études et réflexion. Et ce d’autant plus que l’idée fascine et qu’il est donc important de la démythifier. Contrairement à l’image d’Épinal que l’on en a parfois, l’indépendance de l’Inde a été un été un événement d’une brutalité extrême.

Il est souvent rétorqué que le terme non-violence, défini négativement, ne peut être un objet d’étude scientifique cohérent. Mais tous les grands concepts politiques, de la violence à la démocratie en passant par le pouvoir sont complexes et difficile à cerner. Leurs définitions et domaines d’application restent âprement débattus. Certains même portent en eux une part de rêve (démocratie, égalité, liberté) qui les rend plus complexes encore et parfois explosifs de par leur puissance d’appel. Ceci n’empêche ni les colloques, ni les publications scientifiques, bien au contraire. Si l’on prend le temps d’enseigner les concepts utopiques de liberté ou de démocratie, il n’y a pas de raison scientifique valable d’ignorer le terme non-violence. Et comprendre les utopies sociales, c’est essentiel. Spinoza le soulignait, nous vivons de peur et d’espoir et les deux sont indissociables. Or nous prenons le temps d’enseigner la guerre, d’étudier de près les cycles de la peur, mais nous négligeons trop souvent les logiques de l’espoir.

La non-violence, même si elle se pose négativement, même si elle relève de l’horizon, est un mot au cœur de la vie dans la cité, au même titre que violence, démocratie, anarchisme, indépendance, autonomie, révolution etc. Cet ouvrage poursuit l’intuition qu’elle est un concept encore méconnu mais à-venir. Les auteurs font également le pari de ne pas perdre l’équilibre entre exigences analytique et synthétique, entre théorie et pratique, entre les disciplines et les auteurs. Son ambition est de tracer et de proposer des chemins pédagogiques qui allient les narrations des acteurs à celles des analystes et, par là, d’encourager le lecteur dans la recherche de ses propres voies (ou voix!). Il s’agit d’écouter les leaders sans les mythifier afin de mieux saisir les échos qu’ils provoquent dans l’histoire. Il s’agit mettre en contexte des cas d’étude, sans pour autant les mettre en boite. Bref, il s’agit d’analyser sans dépecer, d’aborder le sujet avec curiosité, intérêt, bienveillance mais sans complaisance.

Comme l’indique le schéma ci-contre, ce livre sera circulaire dans le sens où il peut être commencé presque n’importe où, à chacun des quatre thèmes d’étude : principes, histoires, personnes et actions, thèmes qui renvoient les uns aux autres. L’ouvrage sera également circulaire dans le sens ou chaque sujet est abordé en un chemin fait de lectures et de réflexions, d’études de cas, et d’exercices appelant de nouvelles lectures. En un sens, si l’ouvrage part des textes, c’est à l’aide de différents exercices et cas d’études que ces derniers prennent sens et que la connaissance peut s’approfondir. Les exercices font donc partie intégrante des parcours pédagogiques proposés; les références et suggestions ouvrent des portes vers de nouvelles pistes de recherche et permettent de s’orienter dans une mer de ressources en ligne très dispersées. Cette anthologie offre ainsi une dynamique pédagogique souple reposant sur l’idée que l’on apprend pas de la même manière par la répétition et par l’expérience, dans un cours et dans un café, en petit groupe sur un projet ou seul face à une citation, mais que tous ces chemins sont complémentaires.

Plan provisionnel de l’ouvrage

Ce livre est une anthologie en 4 parties, 4 espaces d’interaction entre non-violence et politique :

1) Principes (De quoi parle-t-on ?)

2) Histoires (Quand ? Quelles circonstances ? Quels contextes ?)

3) Personnes (Qui ? Quels groupes ? Quelles identités ? Quelles relations ?)

4) Actions (Comment ? Quels processus ? Quelles stratégies ? Quelles techniques et quelles limites ?)

Ces quatre espaces correspondent aux regards et catégories d’analyse proposés par les disciplines sous-jacentes de la science politique : philosophie, histoire, sociologie, droit/administration publique. Mais, au-delà des disciplines, il s’agit également de croiser les perspectives en mettant des textes d’acteurs et d’analystes en dialogue (tout en respectant les ordres de publication pour ouvrir à des analyses intertextuelles) et en les confrontant à du réel (à travers quelques cas d’études).