Head Games?: The Strategic View of Liveness and Performance
When I tell people that I am an economist and a musician, they usually have one of two reactions. Either they tell me that I must be crazy, or conflicted—that the two things can’t possibly go together—or they immediately start talking about ticket prices, drops in CD sales, 360 deals. I however, refuse both stances. The connection that I see between what I study as an economist and how I perform as a musician is the element of strategy.
Andreas Pape performs at The Beef, Binghamton, NY, 10/16/10
Performance, in my view, is the willful construction of a series of events to create a particular mental state for the witnesses. This is the strategic view of performance. I am a game theorist, and game theory is the foundation of the strategic view. Game theory is based on the idea that games are a metaphor for human interaction generally. It is essentially the study of strategy: the chess player imagines different actions he can take, and imagines how his opponent will respond in each case, and uses those forecasts to make his original choice; that’s strategic thinking. In “Singing to my Imagined Listener,” I describe rehearsal as playing to an imagined audience member, judging her response, and adjusting accordingly. That is exactly the strategic view.
I got the opportunity to explore this synergy between live musical performance and economics in an intimate and visceral way a couple of weeks ago—February 9th, 2011, to be exact—when I was asked to speak to a small group of students at Binghamton University who study live performance in an English course called “Representation and Popular Music” taught by Jennifer Stoever-Ackerman. I thought I would reproduce some of that talk here, via video clips, in order to breathe elements of aurality and liveness into the words that follow, which meditate on strategic differences between liveness and recording in the game that we call music.
But first, a song.
In this clip, I play the guitar and harmonica and sing a song of mine called “Sittin’ on the Mailtrain.” I strategically start off with a song that has a jarring chord in each line: my intent is to make the audience feel a bit uncomfortable with this shared live experience, so that they are more inclined to look at it with fresh eyes. At minute 7:45, I point out that I am giving a live performance to those in the room, and recording to those in the future. That’s you. As I say at minute 8:07: “There’s an audience here, in the room, and there is an audience out there in the future, who are experiencing this, but clearly in a different way than you are experiencing it.”
And, I think that you are. Even now. However self-aware and live-esque, this recorded object cannot reproduce the physicalness and immediacy of performance.
Performance is standing in front of people, feeling nervous or confident, holding a guitar, forming words, reading faces, projecting to the back of the room or getting quiet. Performance is hitting taut strings pulled across a wooden box at specific times and with a certain speed, vibrating vocal chords in a certain way, holding ones hands out to make a point, or inhaling a wail out of a blues harp. It is a series of events that are a part of a human life, in the sense that life is a series of physical moments. Agency in that visceral present moment is the essential difference between live performance and recording. Like Kathleen Hanna (frontwoman of Bikini Kill, Julie Ruin, and Le Tigre) wrote in “On Not Playing Dead” in 1999, “[O]ne thing I do as a performer is to stay physically present on stage, and that means being in the now. (Oh my god, I sound like such a hippie.)”
Halfway through my talk, however, my computer interjects with a pre-programmed dialogue that complicates Hanna’s claims. Watch here:
“Excuse me, I’d like to make a point,” my computer says aloud, for all to hear. “I felt it was important to point out that this is not exactly a live event. This is a recording, in some way.”
“Sure,” I reply, according to script.
“You typed this in to simulate this conversation that you’re having right now.”
“Yes,” I reply, “it’s scripted. Did anyone not know this was scripted?” I look questioningly at the students assembled in front of me.
“But this [lecture],” my computer points out, “is basically a recording. It’s an encoding of a particular process. So [the] physical body and mind [of the performer] decodes this script into a process, just like the CD player decodes the CD into a process! So how is this performance not a recording?”
“A recording encodes a performance, and a performance decodes a recording,” I say.
There is a strong way that any “live” performance has a recorded aspect to it and vice versa. The decoding of a CD is a performance, akin to my live performance. My computer worked from a script in the computer science sense—a set of essentially English-language commands that it followed to reconstruct a set of sounds. That is not a traditional recording, in that it is not direct storage of sound waves in magnetic tape or record grooves. However, it is functionally a recording: the user presses a button and a predictable and pre-specified series of sounds emerge.
The Computer Performs its Script, The Beef, Binghamton, NY, October 16, 2010
If we agree that this computer script is a recording in this sense, then we are compelled to accept the next step—that if I, a human, am following a script, that I, too, am simply decoding a recording. That is, I had an idea about how “Sittin’ on the Mailtrain” would go and this idea was necessarily encoded in my mind; then I unpacked this encoding by arranging physical objects, namely my fingers and my voice, to create a song. The song followed an encoding in my head, like when you put a CD in a CD player. The encoding is unpacked, and ultimately results in the same thing: some vibrating object that vibrates the air which then vibrates the audience’s ears in a relentlessly physical way.
The future of performance lies in acknowledging the interrelationship of liveness and recording and further blurring the boundaries between them. The podcasts produced by the lo-fi movement are a key part of this new relationship. I am part of this artistic movement, which asserts the primacy of performance over recordings while also using recording technology to foster and promote liveness. Lo-fi’s hallmarks are: smaller numbers of performers in groups (often solo acts), an emphasis on live recordings complete with audience noise, low production quality (“Background hiss”), and a large number of recordings that often include many versions of the same song. The primacy of performance means the definitive versions of lo-fi songs are not located in recordings that live performances then try (and often fail) to recreate. Rather, the most recently performed version is the “master.” The performance you just watched of the song “Sittin’ on the Mailtrain” for example, was the most definitive version on February 9th. Today just may bring a new definitive version.
Lo-Fi Picture of Pape performing at The Beef, Binghamton, NY 10/16/10
In the aesthetics of the lo-fi movement, the life of the performer is treated not as a series of objects, but rather a series of events, which can be attended or subscribed to, like a podcast. No doubt, each episode is recorded, and the audience receives it as a recording. However, these recordings are meant to be listened to once or twice and let go; they are intended to be ephemeral. A podcast, when viewed as a process over time rather than a possession, is no doubt a performance; the audience can respond from one episode to the next via comments, email, Twitter, etc. and the performer can react. What you are reading and viewing here is simultaneously a lo-fi recording event and a lo-fi performance. This. This blogpost, you reading it, the videos you can watch and listen to, my comments on it here, your comments below that you can post, you sharing it on Facebook or Twitter. You can even follow the traces of this performance through my own Twitter feed.
Strategically, I think the podcast model is the next logical step in the Lo-fi aesthetic. Standup comedy (one of my favorite kinds of live performance) is making this transition as we speak. The old model for the young comedian was to develop “an act” that one (hopefully) toured with, perhaps releasing a comedy CD or landing a role on a sitcom. The new model is a couple of comics releasing a conversational podcast once a week, responding to their biggest fans, giving a raw, intimate, unpolished performance of improvisational humor and riffing, and convincing their fans to become members; a membership that occasionally awards the listener with additional content, but more often only a sense of satisfaction that one gets from supporting something one loves. See, for example, the podcast “empire” of Jesse Thorn at maximumfun.org which includes live comedy podcasts, or the political humor of wearecitizenradio.com, which is also member-supported. What’s interesting, here, is that a pure donation podcast model is enough for some comics to make a living. Ironically, using recording to give primacy to performance, serves the artist. Yesterday’s recording can be taken away from the artist, but tomorrow’s performance cannot.
As for my own future? My own “tomorrow’s performance”? On February 25, 2011, at the Eastern Economics Association Meetings, I will perform a similar event, called this time “Rhetoric, Choice Theory, and Performance.” I will perform music and discuss the strategic view. Economists are not used to thinking seriously about performance nor are they used to thinking seriously about sound. I intend to change that, one strategic moment at a time.
Additional footage in which I define strategy and game theory, and discuss what the strategic view of performance has to say about my references to Dylan and Guthrie:
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Sound at MLA 2011
MLA 2011 offers almost an embarrassment of riches for the sound studies scholar in the new year, testifying to the remarkable recent growth of the field. I have scoured PMLA in order to bring you everything and anything of interest for audio culture peeps, from panels that strike right at the center of the field (“Frost and Sound Studies” for example, or the panel that yours truly will be speaking on, “Literature and Sound,” organized by Amitava Kumar on Saturday from 5:15–6:30 p.m., Plaza III, J. W. Marriott ) to panels that provocatively push (and sometimes explode) the boundaries between sound studies and other fields such as literary studies, music, poetry, disability studies, history, music, urban studies, and trauma studies. This being a blog and all, I have also included relevant panels about digital humanities scholarship, a link to the field that has been strengthened not only by Sounding Out! but by HASTAC’s 2010 online forum, “Feel the Noise.”
Like my coverage of ASA this past November, I will be tweeting real-time sound-related thoughts and ideas inspired by the sound-related panels I attend at our twitterfeed:http://twitter.com/soundingoutblog; follow us (and the MLA 2011 backchannel) for the scoop!
If I somehow missed you or your panel, please let me know!: jsa@binghamton.edu
Thursday, January 6th, 2011
Routes to Roots, Hollywood to Neighborhood
12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., Platinum Salon I, J. W. Marriott
Program arranged by the American Folklore Society. Presiding: Camilla Henriette Mortensen, Univ. of Oregon
“Routes to Roots, Hollywood to Neighborhood: A Soundtrack for the Angels,” Nick Spitzer, Tulane Univ.
For abstracts and sound track, visit http://americanroutes.publicradio.org/archives/show/623/ los-angeles-soundtrack-for-the-angels after 31 Dec.
Silence and Signification in Medieval and Renaissance Literatures: Formal Challenges
1:45–3:00 p.m., Platinum Salon A, J. W. Marriott
A special session. Presiding: Irit Ruth Kleiman, Boston Univ.
1. “Loving the Love of Silence: Material Silence in High Medieval Monastic Books,” Thomas
O’Donnell, Univ. of York
2. “Pilgrims in Jerusalem: Repetition of Silence,” Phillip Usher, Barnard Coll.
3. “‘Mescheance’ and Silence in French Romance,” Irit Ruth Kleiman
Theater and Performance in and of Los Angeles: Alternative Archives
1:45–3:00 p.m., Platinum Salon B, J. W. Marriott
Program arranged by the Division on Drama. Presiding: Ann Pellegrini, New York Univ.
1. “Acting like a Woman: Archival Engagement with the Women’s Building,” Lydia Brawner, New
York Univ.
2. “‘No, I’ve Not Forgotten’: Performance and Memory in Cambodian America,” Josh Takano
Chambers- Letson, Univ. of Cincinnati
3. “Records y Recuerdos: Music and Memory in Butchlalis de Panochtitlan’s The Barber of East L.A.,” Karen Tongson, Univ. of Southern California
Two- in- One: When the Same Individual Writes Both Words and Music
1:45–3:00 p.m., Platinum Salon I, J. W. Marriott
Program arranged by the Lyrica Society for Word-Music Relations. Presiding: Jeff Dailey, Five Towns Coll.
1. “Hildegard’s Own Singing: O Virga ac Diadema,” Janet Youngdahl, Univ. of Lethbridge
2. “Charles Dibdin: Troubled in Mind, like a Rolling Stone,” Betsy A. Bowden, Rutgers Univ., Camden
3. “Composers and Writers and Librettists in Musical Theater of Early- Twentieth- Century Spain: The Cases of Tomás Bretón and Pio Baroja,” Victoria Wolff, Univ. of Western Ontario
4. “Mathematical Music: Bob Dylan’s Extra- lyrical Appeal,” Justin Tremel, Univ. of Texas, Austin
For abstracts, write to cfanarts@aol.com.
Literary Research in/and Digital Humanities
3:30–4:45 p.m., Diamond Salon 1, J. W. Marriott
Program arranged by the Discussion Group on Libraries and Research in Languages and Literatures. Presiding: James Raymond Kelly, Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst
Speakers: Heather Bowlby, Univ. of Virginia; Marija Dalbello, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick; Amy Earhart, Texas A&M Univ., College Station; Manuel M. Martin- Rodriguez, Univ. of California, Merced; Susanne Woods, Wheaton Coll., MA; Abby Yochelson, Library of Congress
Respondent: Robert H. Kieft, Occidental Coll.
This session is the inaugural meeting of a new interdisciplinary MLA discussion group formed by
librarians in the association for the discussion of matters of mutual interest with scholars. Panelists will present current work, and the group will discuss its future and how it can promote the creation and curation of scholarly collections and archives, publications, research data, and teaching and study tools through professional associations and on their own campuses.
For abstracts, visit http://guides.library.umass.edu/MLA2011
Wallace Stevens’s Voices
5:15–6:30 p.m., Diamond Salon 8, J. W. Marriott
Program arranged by the Wallace Stevens Society.
Presiding: Elisabeth Oliver, McGill Univ.
1. “Less and Less Human: Stevens, Gibberish, and the Cry of the Animal,” Thomas Sowders, Louisiana State Univ., Baton Rouge
2. “The War of ‘Of’ and Other Polyvocal Syntaxes in ‘An Ordinary Evening in New Haven,’” David Joseph Letzler, Graduate Center, City Univ. of New York
3. “The Poet’s Voice in the Echo of Stevens,” Dean Rader, Univ. of San Francisco
Performances of Black Cultural Trauma and Memory
5:15–6:30 p.m., Atrium I, J. W. Marriott
A special session. Presiding: Lisa Thompson, Univ. at Albany, State Univ. of New York
Speakers: Herman Beavers, Univ. of Pennsylvania; Diana Rebekkah Paulin, Trinity Coll., CT;
Sonnet Retman, Univ. of Washington, Seattle; Valerie Smith, Prince ton Univ.; Lisa Thompson;
Lisa Woolfork, Univ. of Virginia
This roundtable will examine various ways African American novelists, poets, filmmakers, play-
wrights, and other artists engage with and evoke black cultural trauma and memory in their work. The six participants on this roundtable will con- sider how representations of black pain, horror, terror, suffering, violence, and struggle are memorialized, performed, evoked, and fetishized.
Friday, January 7th, 2011
Narrating Illness and Disability: Risks and Rewards
8:30–9:45 a.m., Olympic II, J. W. Marriott
A special session. Presiding: Ann Jurecic, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick
1. “Listening, Telling, Suffering, and Carrying On: Reflexive Practice or Health Imperialism?”
Rita Charon, Columbia Univ.
2. “Life Narratives in the Risk Society,” Ann Jurecic
3. “Narrating Disability inside and outside the Clinic,” G. Thomas Couser, Hofstra Univ.
Respondent: Priscilla B. Wald, Duke Univ.
Planet Wiki? Postcolonial Theory, Social Media, and Web 2.0
8:30–9:45 a.m., 406A, LA Convention Center
A special session. Presiding: Amit Ray, Rochester Inst. of Tech.
1. “Border Politics on YouTube: Heriberto Yépez’s ‘Voice Exchange Rates’ (or the Bodies That Anti- matter),” Tomás Urayoán Noel, Univ. at Albany, State Univ. of New York
2. “Truths of Times to Come: Deleuze, Media, India,” Amitabh Rai, Florida State Univ.
3. “Remapping the Space In- Between: Social Networks of Race, Class, and Digital Media in the Brazilian City,” Justin Andrew Read, Univ. at Buffalo, State Univ. of New York
Respondent: Amit Ray
For abstracts and papers, visit https://honors.rit.edu/amitraywiki/index.php/Planet-Wiki
BBC Radio and British Writing
8:30–9:45 a.m., Diamond Salon 3, J. W. Marriott
Program arranged by the Division on Twentieth-Century English Literature.
Presiding: Allan Hepburn, McGill Univ.
1. “Cultural Tectonics; or, Why the BBC Became Afraid: Harold Nicolson and the New Spirit in Literature,” Todd Avery, Univ. of Massachusetts, Lowell
2. “The Listener as Interface,” Debra Rae Cohen, Univ. of South Carolina, Columbia
3. “Only Connecting? E. M. Forster, Empire Broadcasting, and the Ethics of Distance,” Daniel
Morse, Temple Univ., Philadelphia
New (and Renewed) Work in Digital Literary Studies: An Electronic Roundtable
8:30–9:45 a.m., Plaza I, J. W. Marriott
Program arranged by the Association for Computers and the Humanities.
Presiding: Bethany Nowviskie, Univ. of Virginia
Speakers: Ernest Cole, Hope Coll.; Randall Cream, Univ. of South Carolina, Columbia; Kathleen
Fitzpatrick, Pomona Coll.; Joseph Gilbert, Univ. of Virginia; Laura C. Mandell, Miami Univ., Oxford; William Albert Pannapacker, Hope Coll.; Douglas Reside, Univ. of Maryland, College Park; Andrew M. Stauffer, Univ. of Virginia; John A. Walsh, Indiana Univ., Bloomington; Matthew
Wilkens, Rice Univ.
Projects, groups, and initiatives highlighted in this session build on the editorial and archival roots of humanities scholarship to offer new, explicitly methodological and interpretive contributions to the digital literary scene or to intervene in established patterns of scholarly communication and pedagogical practice. Brief introductions will be followed by simultaneous demonstrations of the presenters’ work at eight computer stations.
For project links and abstracts, visit http://ach.org/mla/mla11
Analog and Digital: Texts, Contexts, and Networks
10:15–11:30 a.m., Atrium I, J. W. Marriott
A special session. Presiding: Victoria E. Szabo, Duke Univ.
1. “Digital Networks and Horizontal Textuality,” David S. Roh, Old Dominion Univ.
2. “The Work of the Text in Haggard’s She: Full-Text Searching and Networks of Association,”
Robert Steele, George Washington Univ.
3. “Taken Possession Of: What Digital Archives Can Teach Us about Nathaniel Hawthorne, Religious Readers, and Antebellum Reprinting Culture,” Ryan C. Cordell, Univ. of Virginia
For abstracts, visit www.duke.edu/~ves4/mla2011
Polyglot Poetics
12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., 306B, LA Convention Center
A special session. Presiding: Martin McKinsey, Univ. of New Hampshire, Durham
1. “Language Interference in Charles Bernstein’s Shadowtime,” Linda Reinfeld, Rochester Inst. of Tech.
2. “Bilingual Poetics and Representation in Robert Sullivan’s Star Waka,” Katherine Baxter,
Stanford Univ.
3. “Hsia Yü’s Posthumanist Polyglot Poetics,” Pao Chai Patricia Chiang, National Chung Cheng
Univ; James Rollins, National Chung Cheng Univ.
Film Simulations of Disability
12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., Atrium I, J. W. Marriott
Program arranged by the Division on Disability Studies. Presiding: David Mitchell, Temple Univ.,
Philadelphia
1. “Disability Film Festivals and the Politics of Atypicality,” David Mitchell; Sharon Snyder, Brace Yourselves Productions
2. “Faking It: Canadian Identity and Disability Cinema,” Sally J. Chivers, Trent Univ.
3. “Deaf by Design,” Robert L. Johnson, Midwestern State Univ.
4. “Filming Illiteracy: The Pathology of Dyslexia iin Claude Chabrol’s La cérémonie,” Lynn Tarte
Ramey, Vanderbilt Univ.
Satire, Wit, and Humor in the Works of Langston Hughes
12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., Platinum Salon I, J. W. Marriott
Program arranged by the Langston Hughes Society. Presiding: Sharon Lynette Jones, Wright State Univ.
1. “‘Go Home and Write a Page Tonight’: Sub- versive Irony and Resistant Reading in ‘Theme for English B,’” Daniel Charles Morris, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette
2. “When Music Fails as a Universal Language: The Human Violin in Langston Hughes’s ‘Home,’” Koritha Mitchell, Ohio State Univ., Columbus
3. “A Global Perspective of Jesse B. Semple: Echoes of ‘Bop’ in Ankara, Turkey,” Donna Akiba
Sullivan Harper, Spelman Coll.
For abstracts, visit www.langstonhughessociety.org
Silent Night: The Archives of the Deaf and Blind
1:45–3:00 p.m., Atrium I, J. W. Marriott
Program arranged by the MLA Committee on Scholarly Editions. Presiding: Marta L. Werner,
D’Youville Coll.
1. “Entering the Light: Deaf Studies Digital Journal and the Archives of Sign Language Poetics,”
H- Dirksen Bauman, Gallaudet Univ.
2. “Blindness and Exile in the ‘Dark Blue World’ of Jaroslav Jezek,” Michael Beckerman, New York Univ.
3. “Accessioning Helen Keller: Disability, History, and the Politics of the Archive,” David Serlin,
Univ. of California, San Diego
The History and Future of the Digital Humanities
1:45–3:00 p.m., Plaza I, J. W. Marriott
Program arranged by the MLA Program Committee. Presiding: Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Pomona Coll.
Speakers: Brett Bobley, NEH; Katherine D. Harris, San José State Univ.; Alan Liu, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara; Tara McPherson, Univ. of Southern California; Bethany Nowviskie, Univ. of Virginia; Morgantown; Stephen J. Ramsay, Univ. of Nebraska, Lincoln; Susana Ruiz, Univ. of Southern California
This roundtable will bring together many different perspectives, from humanities computing to
digital media studies, including senior and junior scholars, research and teaching institutions, and faculty and staff members, so that we might explore the overlap, diffusion, and multiplicity of
views of the digital humanities that result.
Good Vibrations and Globalization: LA Pop and the Urban Crisis
3:30–4:45 p.m., Platinum Salon H, J. W. Marriott
A special session. Presiding: Shaun Cullen, Univ. of Virginia
1. “Back Door Man: Jim Morrison between Watts and the Summer of Love,” Eric William Lott,
Univ. of Virginia
2. “‘What You See Is What You Get’?: Richard Pryor, Wattstax, and the Secret History of the Black Aesthetic,” Scott Saul, Univ. of California, Berkeley
3. “White Skin, Black Flag: SST Records and the Politics of White Ethnicity,” Shaun Cullen
Rethinking Style: Reinvigorating Writing Instruction with Rhetorical Stylistics
3:30–4:45 p.m., Platinum Salon B, J. W. Marriott
Program arranged by the Rhetoric Society of America. Presiding: Jordynn M. Jack, Univ. of
North Carolina, Chapel Hill
1. “Rethinking Stylistic Pedagogy: Imitation, Sentence Combining, and Generative Rhetoric for
the Twenty- First Century,” Paul G. Butler, Univ. of Houston
2. “Speaking Figures: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on the Voiced Style,” Richard
Graff, Univ. of Minnesota, Twin Cities
3. “Teaching the Art of Amplifying,” Jeanne Fahnestock, Univ. of Maryland, College Pararrating Illness and Disability: Risks and Rewards, For abstracts, visit http://jordynnjack.com/rsa-at-mla/
Saturday, January 8th, 2011
Textual Scholarship and New Media
8:30–9:45 a.m., Diamond Salon 8, J. W. Marriott
Program arranged by the MLA Committee on Scholarly Editions. Presiding: Michael Eberle-
Sinatra, Université de Montréal
1. “Comic Book Markup Language: An Introduc- tion and Rationale,” John A. Walsh, Indiana Univ., Bloomington
2. “Crowdspeak: Mobile Telephony and TXTual Practice,” Rita Raley, Univ. of California, Santa
Barbara
3. “Alternate Reality Games and Transmedia Textuality: Interpretive Play and the Immaterial Ar-
chive,” Zach Whalen, Univ. of Mary Washington
Henry James and Alfred Hitchcock: The Men Who Knew Too Much
8:30–9:45 a.m., Platinum Salon H, J. W. Marriott
A special session. Presiding: Susan Mary Griffin, Univ. of Louisville; Alan Nadel, Univ. of Kentucky
1. “Awkward Ages: James and Hitchcock in Between,” Mark Goble, Univ. of California, Berkeley
2. “Sounds of Silence in The Wings of the Dove and Blackmail,” Donatella Izzo, Università di Napoli l’Orientale
3. “Hands, Objects, and Love in James and Hitchcock: Reading the Touch in The Golden Bowl
and Notorious,” Jonathan E. Freedman, Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor
The Institution(alization) of Digital Humanities
8:30–9:45 a.m., Atrium III, J. W. Marriott
Program arranged by the Discussion Group on Computer Studies in Language and Literature.
Presiding: David Lee Gants, Florida State Univ.
1. “A Media Ecological Approach to Digital Humanities; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and
Love This Dynamic Field,” Kimberly Knight, Univ. of Texas, Dallas
2. “Power, Prestige, and Profession: Digital Humanities in the Age of Academic Anxiety,” Amy
Earhart, Texas A&M Univ., College Station
3. “Emerging Dialogue: Librarians and Digital Humanists,” Johanna Drucker, Univ. of California, Los Angeles
Narrating the (After)Life of a City: Sighting, Sounding, and Moving in Detroit
10:15–11:30 a.m., Platinum Salon F, J. W. Marriott
A special session. Presiding: Patricia Yaeger, Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor
1. “Detroit Still Lives: The False Movements of Spatial Stories in Ruins,” Renée Carine Hoogland, Wayne State Univ.
2. “Mean Martha Jean and the Queens of Soul,” Hortense Jeanette Spillers, Vanderbilt Univ.
3. “The Life of the Line: Finally Got the News All Cut Up,” Kathryne Victoria Lindberg,
Wayne State Univ.
Social Networking: Web 2.0 Applications for the Teaching of Languages and Literatures
10:15–11:30 a.m., Diamond Salon 2, J. W. Marriott
Program arranged by the MLA Committee on Information Technology. Presiding: Barbara Lafford, Arizona State Univ. West
1. “Writing for Nonprofits in Social- Media Environments,” Sean McCarthy, Univ. of Texas, Austin
2. “The Macaulay Eportfolio Collection: A Case Study in the Uses of Social Networking for Learning,” Lauren Klein, Graduate Center, City Univ. of
New York
3. “Social Media, Digital Vernaculars, and Language Education,” Steven Thorne, Portland State
Univ.
For abstracts, write to blafford@asu.edu
Other Sounds, Other Worlds: Literary Soundscapes in Asian and Transnational Contexts
12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., 304C, LA Convention Center
A special session. Presiding: Pieter Keulemans, Yale Univ.
1. “Sounding Spaces: The Role of Soundscapes in Amit Chaudhuri’s Novels Afternoon Raag and The Immortals,” Christin Hoene, Univ. of Edinburgh
2. “Auditors Abroad: Defamiliarized Listening in Japan and the West,” Kerim Yasar, Prince ton Univ.
3. “Selling the Soundscape of Beijing: Vendor Calls, Acoustic Attractions, and the Aesthetics of
the Literary Marketplace in Chinese Martial- Arts Fiction,” Pieter Keulemans
The Cold War in Africa
12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., 301B, LA Convention Center
A special session. Presiding: Gary Rees, Univ. of Houston
1. “South Atlantic Cold War Cartographies: Mapping State Terrorism in the Novels of Nadine
Gordimer and Mark Behr,” Kerry Bystrom, Univ. of Connecticut, Storrs
2. “Neoimperialism and the Body Politic: Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People,” Gary Rees
3. “The Cold War, Radio Diplomacy, and the Works of Naguib Mahfouz: Retelling the Narrative of Suez,” Douglas Eli Julien, Univ. of Minnesota, Morris
4. “Nonalignment and the Postcolony: India and Kenya in the Cold War,” James Daniel Elam,
Northwestern Univ.
Technology, Culture, and Authenticity, 1850–1910
5:15–6:30 p.m., Diamond Salon 2, J. W. Marriott
A special session. Presiding: Douglas Mao, Johns Hopkins Univ., MD
1. “Feeling Real: Technology and the Sensations of Victorian War,” Rachel Teukolsky, Vanderbilt Univ.
2. “Authenticity in Utopia,” Douglas Mao
3. “Nature, Culture, and Technology: The Evolution of Subjectivities,” Regenia Gagnier, Univ. of
Exeter
Frost and Sound Studies
5:15–6:30 p.m., Diamond Salon 7, J. W. Marriott
Program arranged by the Robert Frost Society.
Presiding: Robert Faggen, Claremont McKenna Coll.
1. “Robert Frost and the Spoken Word,” Tyler Brent Hoffman, Rutgers Univ., Camden
2. “Skillful Breaks: The Cultural Discourse of Frost’s Meter,” Michael L. Manson, American Univ.
3. “Breath Units: Projecting Verse from Robert Frost,” Natalie E. Gerber, State Univ. of New York, Fredonia
Respondent: Timothy Steele, California State Univ., Los Angeles
For abstracts, write to rfaggen@cmc.edu
“Giant Steps”: Jazz and Poetry
5:15–6:30 p.m., Plaza I, J. W. Marriott
Program arranged by the Division on Poetry.
Presiding: Aldon Lynn Nielsen, Penn State Univ., University Park
1. “‘How to Stay Alive’: John Taggart’s Sheets of Sound,” Patrick J. Pritchett, Harvard Univ.
2. “Sex, Gender, and the Jazz Body in Contemporary Poetry,” Meta DuEwa Jones, Univ. of Texas, Austin
3. “‘All Blues’: The Role of Genre in the Poetic Tradition of Vernacaular and Experimental Black
Music,” Michael New, Penn State Univ., University Park
Ha- Ha Hungary: Humor in Hungarian Film and Literature
5:15–6:30 p.m., 304C, LA Convention Center
Program arranged by the Discussion Group on Hungarian Literature. Presiding: Gabriella Kec-
skes, Temple Univ., Philadelphia
1. “Why Laughter? Humor and Mockery in Petöfi and Mikszáth,” Enikö Molnár Basa, Library of
Congress
2. “‘Sirva vigad a magyar’: Melancholy Mirth and Witty Woe in Hungarian Literature,” Martha
Pereszlényi- Pinter, John Carroll Univ.
3. “Humor in Hungarian Folktales,” Katherine Mary Gatto, John Carroll Univ.
4. “Male Corpses, Female Voices: Images of European Gender Relations in György Pálfi’s Hukkle and Pedro Almodóvar’s Volver,” Gabriella Kecskes
For abstracts, write to gkecsk02@ temple .edu.
Literature and Sound
5:15–6:30 p.m., Plaza III, J. W. Marriott
Program arranged by the Division on Literature and Other Arts. Presiding: Amitava Kumar, Vassar Coll.
1. “The Vectorized Self: From Space to Sound in Joan Didion’s Play It As It Lays,” J. D. Connor, Yale Univ.
2. “Echo and the Siren’s Song: Ann Petry’s ‘On Saturday the Siren Sounds at Noon,’” Jennifer Stoever- Ackerman, Binghamton Univ., State Univ. of New York
3. “Ecstatic Time: The Syncopated Form of Holleran’s Dancer from the Dance,” Matt Bell, Bridgewater State Coll.
4. “Records, Race, and Rape in Wright and Ellison,” Erich Nunn, Auburn Univ., Auburn
Sunday, January 9th, 2011
Writing the City
10:15–11:30 a.m., Atrium III, J. W. Marriott
A special session. Presiding: Jeffrey Allen Steele, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison
1. “The Urban (Un)Seen,” Kimberly DeFazio, Clarkson Univ.
2. “The Mediated City in Sousandrâde’s ‘Inferno de Wall Street,’” Jacob Wilkenfeld, Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
3. “In the Heart of the City: Rewriting the Nineteenth- Century City through Adultery,” Vir-
ginia Piper, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison
4. “Revisiting the Flaneur,” Dana Aron Brand, Hofstra Univ.
Parsing the Unspeakable
10:15–11:30 a.m., Diamond Salon 1, J. W. Marriott
A special session. Presiding: Barry George Stampfl, San Diego State Univ.
1. “The Death of Trauma,” Michelle Balaev, Wake Forest Univ.
2. “Unspeakable Fidelities: Violence, Justice, and ‘Being True,’” Naomi Iliana Mandel, Univ. of
Rhode Island
3. “Unspeakability and the Rhetoric of Cruelty,” Michael F. Bernard- Donals, Univ. of Wisconsin,
Madison
From the New Song and Rock en Español to Spanish and Iberian Pop
10:15–11:30 a.m., Platinum Salon H, J. W. Marriott
Program arranged by the Division on Popular Culture. Presiding: Silvia Bermúdez, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara
1. “Rock ’n’ Road Songs: Traveling New Routes in Spanish Rock Music,” Jorge P. Pérez, Univ. of Kansas
2. “Border Music in a Borderless World: Mapping the Sounds of NAFTA between Mexico and the United States,” William John Nichols, Georgia State Univ.
3. “Raperos, Boleros, and Salseros: Reconsidering the Authentic in Cuban Popular Music since
the Revolution,” Russell St Clair Cobb, Univ. of Alberta
Respondent: Frances R. Aparicio, Univ. of Illinois, Chicago
What the Digital Does to Reading
10:15–11:30 a.m., Diamond Salon 8, J. W. Marriott
Program arranged by the MLA Committee on Information Technology. Presiding: Laura C. Man-
dell, Miami Univ., Oxford
1. “What Would Jesus Google? Plural Reading in the Digital Archive,” Daniel Allen Shore, Grinnell Coll.
2. “Social Book Catalogs and Reading: Shifting Paradigms, Humanizing Databases,” Renee Hudson, Univ. of California, Los Angeles; Kimberly Knight, Univ. of Texas, Dallas
3. “Illuminating Hidden Paths: Reading and Annotating Texts in Many Dimensions,” Julie
Meloni, Washington State Univ., Pullman
For abstracts, visit www.users.muohio.edu/mandellc/digRdg.html after 15 Nov.
Literature and/as New Media
12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., 309, LA Convention Center
Program arranged by the Division on Literature and Other Arts. Presiding: Jon McKenzie, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison
Speakers: Sarah Allison, Stanford Univ.; N. Katherine Hayles, Duke Univ.; Richard E. Miller, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick; Todd Samuel Presner, Univ. of California, Los Angeles; Craig J. Saper, Univ. of Central Florida; Holly Willis, Univ. of Southern California; Michael L. Witmore, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison
This session engages the nexus of literature and new media from several perspectives, ranging
from emerging forms of electronic literature to computer- enabled modes of literary analysis to
the broader implications of IT and new media for literary and cultural study. In an age of digital
poetry, graphic novels, and iPhone “appisodes,” how useful is the notion of distinct media? In what ways do quantitative methods of “distant reading” and “counting literature” extend traditional forms of analysis, and in what ways do they threaten or simply sidestep them? And what’s at stake in recent calls to critically mash up new media forms and processes in order to reboot the humanities as “new humanities,” “Big Humanities,” and “Humanities 2.0”?
Sound Reproduction and the Literary
1:45–3:00 p.m., Diamond Salon 6, J. W. Marriott
A special session. Presiding: Jentery Sayers, Univ. of Washington, Seattle
1. “Sound as Sensory Modality in Electronic Literature,” Dene M. Grigar, Washington State Univ., Vancouver
2. “‘Cause That’s the Way the World Turns’: John Edgar Wideman’s Sent for You Yesterday and the Mnemonic Jukebox,” Jürgen E. Grandt, Gainesville State Coll., GA
3. “Analog History: Kevin Young’s To Repel Ghosts and the Textuality of the Turntable,” Paul
Benzon, Temple Univ., Philadelphia
Respondent: Jentery Sayers
For abstracts, examples, and biographies, visit www.hastac.org/ after 1 Dec.
Literature and Opera
1:45–3:00 p.m., 304A, LA Convention Center
Program arranged by the Division on Nineteenth-Century French Literature. Presiding: Elisabeth
Akhimoff Ladenson, Columbia Univ.
1. “Otello’s French Connection,” William Germano, Cooper Union
2. “Stendhal’s Ear,” Nicholas Dames, Columbia Univ.
3. “ Saint- Saëns’s Samson,” Kevin Richard Kopelson, Univ. of Iowa
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