Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• ROSENFELD, SOPHIA

Titel

On Being Heard: A Case for Paying Attention to the Historical Ear

Ist Teil von

• The American historical review, 2011-04, Vol.116 (2), p.316-334

Ort / Verlag

England: University of Chicago Press

Erscheinungsjahr

2011

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Oxford Journals 2020 Humanities

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Rosenfeld traces the robust development of the history of sound, listening, and aural attention, while endorsing the usefulness of the general concepts of "regimes of audition" and "acoustic communities." Although warning against technological determinism, she foregrounds the importance of new communicative devices that enhance the range and acuity of the ear and tentatively promotes the possibility of a "grand narrative for the ear," at least in Western societies. In her telling, the conventional wisdom that hearing has declined in importance is unpersuasive, especially if one acknowledges the links that exist between the right to hear and be heard and modern democratic politics, demonstrated by the new public soundscape established during the French Revolution. Sensitive to the metaphoric mobilization of ideas such as le bon sens and "common sense," Rosenfeld concludes by pondering the emergence of a version of prudent, discriminating judgment, still connected to the ability to listen and the right to be heard, that can challenge the more monologic notion of rational deliberation located entirely in the mind.