The Sounds of Climate Change: Sonic Rhetoric in the Anthropocene, the Age of Human Impact

Michelle Comstock University of Colorado Denver ; Mary E. Hocks University of Colorado Denver

Abstract

Because of its temporal and vibrational qualities, sound is a particularly useful rhetorical resource for communicating our currently volatile experiences of climate change and extinction. A critical sonic rhetoric moves us from a disembodied marketplace of ideas to an immersive, interdependent soundscape. This move is exemplified in the work of sound artists Susan Philipsz and Bernie Krause, which provides experiences of surface time (sounds arising and decaying) and what climate change scholars call “deep time” (species coming and going from the earth), along with the affective dimensions of nostalgia and grief that saturate these experiences with individual and cultural meaning.

Journal
Rhetoric Review
Published
2016-04-02
DOI
10.1080/07350198.2016.1142854
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Cited by in this index (8)

  1. Rhetoric Review
  2. Rhetoric Review
  3. Computers and Composition
  4. Rhetoric Review
  5. Computers and Composition
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  1. Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  2. Rhetoric Review
  3. Computers and Composition

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