Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
1. Neoliberal Noise and the Biopolitics of (Un)Cool: Acoustic
Resonance as Political Economy 23
2. Universal Envoicement: Acoustic Resonance as Political
Ontology 51
3. Vibration and Diffraction: Acoustic Resonance as Materialist
Ontology 87
4. Neoliberal Sophrosyne: Acoustic Resonance as Subjectivity and
Personhood 126
5. Social Physics and Quantum Physics: Acoustic Resonance as the
Model for a "Harmonious" World 158
Conclusion 181
Notes 185
Bibliography 227
Index 239
Robin James is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and author of Resilience and Melancholy: Pop Music, Feminism, Neoliberalism and The Conjectural Body: Gender, Race, and the Philosophy of Music.
“Through skillful and perceptive negotiations among diverse
theoretical paradigms and material practices, Robin James
articulates a bold thesis about the shift from the visual character
of modernity articulated by Foucault to the sonic episteme
characteristic of twenty-first-century biopolitical neoliberalism.
In James’s hands, the sonic episteme becomes a diagnostic tool as
well as an all-embracing metaphor of the way the new regime of
neoliberal biopower works, its modes of governmentality, and its
production of excluded groups. An outstanding book.”
*Feminist Aesthetics and the Politics of Modernism*
“The Sonic Episteme is a fascinating exploration of the problems of
neoliberalism and the biopolitical that attends to the ways sound
has come to be an object of study. Robin James asks readers to
refuse the privileging of any one sense experience by examining the
ways what she calls the sonic episteme is a part of neoliberal
thought, not a break from it. The Sonic Episteme is about the
practice of alternatives to the social order in thought and its
epistemological possibilities rather than the search for
alternatives emerging from the already given epistemological
horizon and thrust of Western thought. As such, James offers a way
to think sound studies, race, and material cultures together.”
*Blackpentecostal Breath: The Aesthetics of Possibility*
"James is an insightful philosopher and sharp cultural critic
drawing comparisons between musical phenomena such as compression
and the loudness wars, and the damages wreaked by neoliberal market
economics."
*The Wire*
"What makes The Sonic Episteme an impressive accomplishment is its
academically acceptable reliance on Philosophy combined with a
crucial gesture, beyond Philosophy’s purview, to commercially
successful pop music, which has the potential to present a crucial
something else."
*Spectrum Culture*
"This extensive assemblage of source texts generates unexpected and
often striking conclusions. Most valuably, James organises crucial
texts at the intersection of sound studies and critical race
studies, proffering their diverse methodologies as alternatives to
the techniques of post-democratic perceptual coding. For those
interested in the consequences of frequency modeling and the
broader project of approaching philosophy through sound, The
Sonic Episteme presents a bold . . . foray into the rich
territory of neoliberal sonic representation."
*Sound Studies*
“Robin James’s The Sonic Episteme is an incredibly provocative,
well-argued, well-written, and necessary study of popular music and
neoliberalism. It will surely be of interest to those in
philosophy, popular music studies, sound studies, cultural studies,
and Black studies.”
*Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism*
“With The Sonic Episteme, James intervenes upon sound by asking us
to think more critically, inclusively, and ethically with and about
it.... [Its] topical and methodological breadth makes it a
productive and useful addition to the field of popular music
studies.”
*Journal of Popular Music Studies*
“Robin James’ latest book is a compelling and rewarding showcase of
her ability to use music and sound as a means to interrogate an
array of contemporary philosophical, political, cultural and
scientific perspectives.... By aggregating vernacular and non-elite
ways of knowing, as expressed through a range of music and sound
practices, she has succeeded in developing credible and coherent
alternatives.”
*Popular Music*
"The Sonic Episteme promises to be an important addition to
graduate syllabi and should push music scholars and practitioners
to see how our ideas about the nature of sound might hamper our
efforts to reshape the places, settings, and institutions where we
make music."
*Journal of the Society of American Music*
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