Static in the System by Meredith C Ward
In this rich study of noise in American film-going culture, Meredith C. Ward shows how aurality can reveal important fissures in American motion picture history, enabling certain types of listening cultures to form across time. Connecting this history of noise in the cinema to a greater sonic culture, Static in the System shows how cinema sound was networked into a broader constellation of factors that affected social power, gender, sexuality, class, the built environment, and industry, and how these factors in turn came to fruition in cinema's soundscape. Focusing on theories of power as they manifest in noise, the history of noise in electro-acoustics with the coming of film sound, architectural acoustics as they were manipulated in cinema theaters, and the role of the urban environment in affecting mobile listening and the avoidance of noise, Ward analyzes the powerful relationship between aural cultural history and cinema's sound theory, proving that noise can become a powerful historiographic tool for the film historian.
"Ward’s book is one of the first in a generation to give us a new place to start when it comes to cinema sound – not by discarding the research of the past, but by resituating it in new conversations" * Journal of Sonic Studies *
"Static in the System will provide many scholars in both Film Studies and Sound Studies fresh understandings for the many convergences between cinema culture and historical concepts of noise." * Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television *
"Static in the System will provide many scholars in both Film Studies and Sound Studies fresh understandings for the many convergences between cinema culture and historical concepts of noise." * Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television *
Meredith C. Ward is Director of the Film and Media Studies Program at Johns Hopkins University. She is also affiliated faculty for the Center for Advanced Media Studies at Johns Hopkins. She is the author of articles on sound and media for Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film; Music, Sound, and the Moving Image; and the upcoming Oxford Handbook of Cinematic Listening and the recipient of the 2016 Dissertation Award for outstanding contribution to the field of media studies from the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS).
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780520299474 |
| ISBN 10 | 0520299477 |
| Title | Static in the System |
| Author | Meredith C Ward |
| Series | California Studies In Music Sound And Media |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | University of California Press |
| Year published | 2019-03-05 |
| Number of pages | 256 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |