All Ears: The Aesthetics of Espionage

By: Roland Végső and Peter Szendy

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Synopsis: The world of international politics has recently been rocked by a seemingly endless series of scandals involving auditory surveillance: the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping is merely the most sensational example of what appears to be a universal practice today. What is the source of this generalized principle of eavesdropping? All Ears: The Aesthetics of Espionage traces the long history of moles from the Bible, through Jeremy Bentham’s “panacoustic” project, all the way to the intelligence-gathering network called “Echelon.” Together with this archeology of auditory surveillance, Szendy offers an engaging account of spycraft’s representations in literature (Sophocles, Shakespeare, Joyce, Kafka, Borges), opera (Monteverdi, Mozart, Berg), and film (Lang, Hitchcock, Coppola, De Palma). Following in the footsteps of Orpheus, the book proposes a new concept of “overhearing” that connects the act of spying to an excessive intensification of listening. At the heart of listening Szendy locates the ear of the Other that manifests itself as the originary division of a “split-hearing” that turns the drive for mastery and surveillance into the death drive.

Book Quality:: Publisher Quality
ISBN-13:: 9780823273973
Related ISBNs:: 9780823273959, 9780823273966
Publisher:: Fordham University Press
Date of Addition:: 04/14/17
Copyrighted By:: Fordham University Press
Adult content:: No
Language:: English
Has Image Descriptions:: No
Categories:: History, Nonfiction, Literature and Fiction, Mystery and Thrillers, Social Studies, Language Arts, Music, Philosophy
Submitted By:: Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:: This is a copyrighted book.