Sound is the new source of insight. This book examines how its production, reception and interpretation inform meaning making, identity and desire.
'Resonant Alterities' bridges the gap between sound studies and literary criticism. A queer ghost story by Vernon Lee, an occultist novel of psychic adventure by Algernon Blackwood, a dystopian science fiction tale by J. G. Ballard and a post-traumatic short novel by Don DeLillo are its primary objects of analysis. Each is explored within the context of its contemporary cultural debates on sound. Meanwhile, all four theory-enriched readings focus on intersecting and desire-laden processes of meaning making, knowledge production and subject formation. Focal points are aurally/audio-visually structured phenomena expressive of both collective and individual anxieties.
