SpokenWeb podcast: Cylinder talks (w/ Stacey Copeland and Jason Camlot)

In this episode, New Aural Cultures is delighted to be collaborating with the SpokenWeb podcast. Produced by a collective of researchers who are dedicated to the discovery and preservation of sonic artefacts that have captured literary events of the past, SpokenWeb is both a vital resource for the analysis of the spoken word history in Canada and beyond, and a vital intervention into the present and future of literary performance, communication and knowledge exchange from critical and pedagogical perspectives. The podcast is hosted and produced by previous New Aural Cultures guests Hannah MacGregor and Stacey Copeland respectively.

The episode we bring you is entitled Cylinder talks and features Director of the SpokenWeb Network and Professor at Concordia University – Jason Camlot – in conversation with SpokenWeb podcast supervising producer and Simon Fraser University PhD candidate – Stacey Copeland – and explores how sound studies is being taken up in the literary classroom. Together we listen back to select “Cylinder Talk” sound production assignments created by Concordia graduate students, and unpack the experiences, ideas and discussions that the production and study of sound can incite across disciplines. A 3-minute audio project assigned to students in Jason’s most recent graduate seminar – Literary Listening as Cultural Technique – the Cylinder Talk draws on a history of early spoken sound recordings, inviting us into an embodied sonic engagement with literature studies.The episode features sound work by Alexandra Sweny, Sara Adams, Aubrey Grant and Andrew Whiteman.

Cylinder Talks Featured:

Alexandra Sweny,  “Ethics of Field Recording in Irv Teibel’s Environments Series”

— Sound Clips:  Original recordings of Montreal by Alexandra Sweny.

Sara Adams,  “Henry Mayhew and Victorian London”

— Sound Clips: “Victorian Street.” British Library, Sounds, Sound Effects. Collection: Period Backgrounds.  Editor, Benet Bergonzi.  Published, 1994.

Aubrey Grant,  “Poe’s Impossible Sound”

— Sound Clips: Lucier, Alvin. I Am Sitting in a Room, Lovely Music Ltd., 1981.

Andrew Whiteman,  “Bronze lance heads”

— Sound Clips:

—“Robert Duncan Lecture on Ezra Pound” March 26, 1976, U of San Diego; accessed from Penn Sound Robert Duncan’s author page. (https://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Duncan.php)

—“Ezra Pound recites Canto 1” 1959; accessed from Penn Sound Ezra Pound’s author page (https://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Pound.php)

— —“The Sound of Pound: A Listener’s Guide” by Richard Siebruth, interview with Al Filreis May 22, 2007. (https://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Pound.php)

— Sampled 1940s film music; date and origin unknown.

— Original music; composed by Andrew Whiteman, Dec 2020.

Click here to visit the episode's website.