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Journal ArticleDOI

Singing Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow: Interfaces of Song, Narrative, and Sonic Performance

01 Jan 2017-Partial Answers (The Johns Hopkins University Press)-Vol. 15, Iss: 1, pp 117-133
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the novel's acoustic background, pointing to the formal structure of songs and its role in locating singing human voices in opposition to noises emitted by technological devices such as V2 rockets.
Abstract: Thomas Pynchon’s interest in music is audibly reflected in the rich intertextual environments of his works such as Gravity’s Rainbow , a novel which includes numerous allusions to musical pieces, descriptions of performances, and song lyrics. The latter stand out from prose narrative as they introduce new diegetic dimensions to the novel by offering playful commentary on its plot and characters. The present study examines the novel’s acoustic background, pointing to the formal structure of songs and its role in locating singing human voices in opposition to noises emitted by technological devices such as V2 rockets. A classification scheme shows how Pynchon’s formal experimentation juxtaposes written and oral variants of language, thus connecting songs to one of the novel’s thematic centers — problematics of order. This function of songs is examined in an episode of Vaslav Tchitcherine’s mission of promoting literacy among oral tribes of Kazakhstan, that serves as a commentary on the conventional character of writing systems and their ability to transform the poetic quality of language into a systematic structure.
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30 Jun 2019

6 citations

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30 Jun 2019

6 citations

Book ChapterDOI
30 Jun 2019

6 citations

Book ChapterDOI
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6 citations

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30 Jun 2019

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References
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MonographDOI
TL;DR: A comprehensive survey and interpretation of the Soviet management of the nationalities question can be found in this article, which traces the conflicts and tensions created by the geographic definition of national territories, the establishment of dozens of official national languages, and the world's first mass "affirmative action" programs.
Abstract: The Soviet Union was the first of Europe's multiethnic states to confront the rising tide of nationalism by systematically promoting the national consciousness of its ethnic minorities and establishing for them many of the institutional forms characteristic of the modern nation-state. In the 1920s, the Bolshevik government, seeking to defuse nationalist sentiment, created tens of thousands of national territories. It trained new national leaders, established national languages, and financed the production of national-language cultural products. This was a massive and fascinating historical experiment in governing a multiethnic state. Terry Martin provides a comprehensive survey and interpretation, based on newly available archival sources, of the Soviet management of the nationalities question. He traces the conflicts and tensions created by the geographic definition of national territories, the establishment of dozens of official national languages, and the world's first mass "affirmative action" programs. Martin examines the contradictions inherent in the Soviet nationality policy, which sought simultaneously to foster the growth of national consciousness among its minority populations while dictating the exact content of their cultures; to sponsor national liberation movements in neighboring countries, while eliminating all foreign influence on the Soviet Union's many diaspora nationalities. Martin explores the political logic of Stalin's policies as he responded to a perceived threat to Soviet unity in the 1930s by re-establishing the Russians as the state's leading nationality and deporting numerous "enemy nations."

1,152 citations

Book
11 Dec 2003
TL;DR: The Nonhermeneutic/Presence: An Anecdotal Account of Epistemological Shifts as mentioned in this paper is an account of epistemological shifts in the history of the arts.
Abstract: Contents User's Manual--xiii Materialities/The Nonhermeneutic/Presence: An Anecdotal Account of Epistemological Shifts--1 Metaphysics: A Brief Prehistory of What Is Now Changing--21 Beyond Meaning: Positions and Concepts in Motion--51 Epiphany/Presentification/Deixis: Futures for the Humanities and Arts--91 To Be Quiet for a Moment: About Redemption--133 Notes--155 Index--173 Library of Congress Subject Headings for this publication: Aesthetics, Experience

574 citations

Book
01 May 1982
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a method of analysis and some examples of levels of style, text style, and frequency in a novel, and discuss the relationship between text style and text content.
Abstract: Foreword Introduction Part I: Approaches and methods 1. Style and Choice 2. Style, Text and Frequency 3. A Method of Analysis and some Examples 4. Levels of Style Part II: Aspects of style 5. Language and the Fictional World 6. Mind Style 7. The Rhetoric of Text 8. Discourse and Discourse Situation 9. Conversation in the Novel 10. Speech and Thought Presentation Passages and topics for further study Further reading Bibliography Index of works discussed General index

565 citations

Book
01 Jan 1948

136 citations