John Mowitt's guest appearances

John Mowitt

Critical Environments

Center For Cultural Analysis

David Jaffe

Martha Nell

Dan Gunn

Ricardo Dominguez

Mark Katz

Robert Fink

Gregory Crane

Philip Steinberg

Hilary Ballon

Franklin Ginn

Wendy Wheeler

Monika Bakke

Daniel Fernández Pascual

Alon Schwabe

Christopher Kelty

OwlTail

Much aesthetic theory has concerned itself with the status and significance of the image. Resisting this "photology," my paper (a chapter from the forthcoming SOUNDS: THE AMBIENT HUMANITIES) will explore, by contrasting the sonic to the phonic, the attractions of tying aesthetic experience to sound, specifically the sound of "the gasp." Through readings of Derrida's SPECTRES OF MARX, McNally's LAST GASPS and Rushdie's THE MOOR'S LAST SIGH, I will propose that the gasp vents us to what Spinoza called "admiratio" (wonder), a break that stirs the perception "photology" has long organised around the image (whether beautiful, sublime or craven). Photology, like the particulate matter generating the optical effect of a sunset, is thus read as an inaudible mode of sound pollution.

John Mowitt - Gasping

John Mowitt (University of Minnesota) - Facing the Radio