Auditory Perception in Twentieth-Century Self-Narratives: Oto-bio-graphical Subjects
(Hardback)
Publishing Details
Auditory Perception in Twentieth-Century Self-Narratives: Oto-bio-graphical Subjects
By (Author) Dr. Claudia Cerulo
Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Bloomsbury Publishing USA
11th December 2025
United States
Classifications
Professional and Scholarly
Non Fiction
Literary theory
Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000
Lacanian psychoanalysis
Physical Properties
Hardback
224
Width 152mm, Height 229mm
Description
Examines the connection between auditory perception and the formation of subjectivity and identity in 20th-century autobiographical literature, drawing a parallel between poststructuralism and the decentered subject in self-narratives.
Throughout the 20th century, auditory perception emerged as a significant area of inquiry across various disciplines, particularly within the fields of poststructuralism and psychoanalysis. Auditory Perception in Twentieth-Century Self-Narratives identifies how these theories converged in their understanding of hearing as a fundamental aspect of development and experience, which in turn led to a decentering and reformulation of the written autobiographical self.
Claudia Cerulo draws connections between auditory perception and the formation of the self in both theoretical and literary texts. Drawing from both psychoanalysis and poststructuralism, the first part of the book engages with the interest of 20th-century theorists in sound, examining terms and usage from Derrida, Lacoue-Labarthe, Nancy, Irigaray, Kristeva, and Cixous. The second part of the book then close-reads three autobiographical works, Elias Canettis Die gerettete Zunge (The Tongue Set Free), Nathalie Ginzburgs Lessico famigliare (Family Sayings), and Nathalie Sarrautes Enfance (Childhood). In these three case studies, acoustic perception is more than a mere episode or decorative element. Instead, it interacts, either directly or indirectly, with all levels of discourse, ranging from the stylistic to the metaphorical. These works thus artistically anticipate what would be theorized only a few decades later and create the conditions for a pre-verbal apprehension of the world, raising questions about the ineffable source of writing and the writing process itself.
Author Bio
Claudia Cerulo is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Naples Federico II, Italy.
