The Novel and the Multispecies Soundscape

Beschreibung

“This book is an ambitious and original piece of literary criticism that recountsthe presence of multispecies soundscapes in twenty-first-century fiction andtheir functions as human responses to/engagement with nonhuman sound. DeBruyn pulls the frameworks of contemporary literature, animal studies andsound studies together to tell us that there are many ways to listen to the naturalworld, and that contemporary literature should not be underestimated for theopportunities it offers to do so.”— Lucile Desblache, Professor of Translation and Transcultural Studies,University of Roehampton, UKThe contemporary novel is not as silent as we tend to believe, nor does it onlyattend to human plots and characters. As this book shows, writers in a range ofsubgenres have devoted considerable attention to the voices of nonhumananimals, and to the histories and technologies of listening that shape twenty-first-century cultures and environments. In doing so, their multispecies novelsilluminate the cultural meanings we attach to creatures like dogs, frogs, whales,chimpanzees, and Tasmanian tigers – not to mention various bird species andeven plants. At the same time, these stories explore the attitudes of distinctcommunities of human listeners, ranging from vets and musicians to chimpcaretakers and sonar technicians. In highlighting animal sounds and their culturalmeanings, these novels by authors including Amitav Ghosh, Julia Leigh, RichardPowers, Karen Joy Fowler, Cormac McCarthy, and Han Kang also enrich pressingdebates about species extinction, sound pollution, nonhuman communication,and human-animal relations. As we are violently reshaping the planet,they inviteus to reimagine our own humanity and animality – and to rethink how we tellstories about multispecies contact zones and their complex soundscapes.Ben De Bruyn teaches English Literature at the University of Louvain-la-Neuve,Belgium. He is the co-editor of Literature Now (2016) and the author of severalarticles on contemporary fi ction and the environmental humanities in journalslike Studies in the Novel and Textual Practice.

The contemporary novel is not as silent as we tend to believe, nor does it only attend to human plots and characters. As this book shows, writers in a range of subgenres have devoted considerable attention to the voices of nonhuman animals, and to the histories and technologies of listening that shape twenty-first-century cultures and environments. In doing so, their multispecies novels illuminate the cultural meanings we attach to creatures like dogs, frogs, whales, chimpanzees, and Tasmanian tigers – not to mention various bird species and even plants. At the same time, these stories explore the attitudes of distinct communities of human listeners, ranging from vets and musicians to chimp caretakers and sonar technicians. In highlighting animal sounds and their cultural meanings, these novels by authors including Amitav Ghosh, Julia Leigh, Richard Powers, Karen Joy Fowler, Cormac McCarthy, and Han Kang also enrich pressing debates about species extinction, sound pollution, nonhuman communication, and human-animal relations. As we are violently reshaping the planet, they invite us to reimagine our own humanity and animality – and to rethink how we tell stories about multispecies contact zones and their complex soundscapes.

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Ben De Bruyn

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Extinction Zoo Music Ecology Environment Cormac McCarthy Song Animal Studies Sound Studies Contemporary Literature Media Posthumanism Ecology

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