Crossed Wires: Literature and Telephony

在给Paul Auster的一封信中，J.M. Coetzee（2013）认为，移动的手机给作家带来了重大的结构性困难：“如果人们.如果一个人不断地在远处与另一个人交谈，那么整个人际关系的符号和信号，语言的和非语言的，自愿的和非自愿的，都必须放弃。对话......是不可能的然而，电话对文学文本的影响远不止于此，尽管电话对叙事结构的影响早已被库切等作家所承认，但失败和中断的沟通--电线交叉、电话窃听和未接电话--更广泛的文化、政治和文本影响仍然被文学研究所忽视。我为期20个月的研究项目（相当于16个月的FT）通过探索从19世纪世纪到现在的作家们对电话的构想来解决这一缺陷。其目的是通过探索来自地球仪的电话和英语文学之间的关系，创造性地和批判性地思考人类和机器的共同出现。该项目将产生一本专著《交叉的电线：文学和电话》，其中将持续分析电话对文学文本的影响。检查电话如何改变了阅读和写作实践，它将探讨发展电话技术对戏剧，小说，诗歌和非小说的影响，作者包括阿里（1987），卡森（2009），科克托（1930），格林（1978），赫特（2016），沙姆西（2009），火花（1959），Twain（1889）and Waugh（1930）.分析将特别关注技术破坏在场与缺席、近与远、生与死的关系的可能性;在这样做的过程中，它将借鉴阿甘本、西苏、德里达、罗内尔和森迪的批判性工作。虽然在媒体和电影研究中已经进行了大量的电话研究，但它对阅读和写作实践发展的影响仍然被忽视。此外，批判理论中关于电话的现有研究可以追溯到20世纪80年代。这本专著是及时的;通过研究电话对语言和形式的影响，探讨电话在最近的移动的、蜂窝和智能手机技术中的作用和代表性。在听觉监控加强和公众越来越意识到智能手机技术对公共健康和人际交流模式的影响的文化中，这项研究具有超越学术界的深远意义。这个跨学科项目的独特之处在于与科学博物馆的合作，该博物馆拥有世界一流的资源，包括有关全球电信发展的重要收藏品，以及世界上最古老的通信公司的资料库BT档案馆。基于我作为一名获奖诗人、学者和广播员的经验，并与一系列研究伙伴合作，该项目纳入了一些创新活动，包括（i）在科学博物馆举办的国际“电话节”，（ii）在国家诗歌图书馆支持下开发的“打电话的移动的”应用程序，（iii）利用英国电信档案馆和科学博物馆的收藏制作了一个关于电话的广播专题节目;（iv）在英国电信档案馆和网上展览中收集了一批新的文学资源;（v）与青年司法服务处合作举办了一系列写作讲习班，探讨使用智能手机技术的创造性表达形式。响应当前的关注围绕电话使用（例如，文字说话，电话成瘾，色情短信），并有助于在该领域的高调奖学金，该项目汇集了创造性和批判性的方法，以调查我们现有的使用电信可以帮助我们找到新的方式构思道德和创造性的技术未来。

In a letter to Paul Auster, J.M. Coetzee (2013) argues that the mobile phone creates significant structural difficulties for the writer: 'If people ... are continually going to be speaking to one another at a distance, then a whole gamut of interpersonal signs and signals, verbal and non-verbal, voluntary and involuntary, has to be given up. Dialogue ... just isn't possible'. The implications of the telephone for the literary text, however, extend far beyond this, and although the effect of the telephone on narrative structure has long been acknowledged by writers such as Coetzee, the wider cultural, political and textual implications of failed and interrupted communication - of crossed wires, phone-hacking and missed calls - remain neglected in literary scholarship. My 20-month research project (equivalent to 16 months FT) addresses this deficiency by exploring the ways that the telephone has been conceived by writers from the 19th century to the present day. Its aim is to think creatively and critically about the co-emergence of the human and the machine by exploring the relationship between telephony and Anglophone literature from across the globe. The project will result in a monograph, Crossed Wires: Literature and Telephony, which will provide a sustained analysis of the effects of telephony on the literary text. Examining how the telephone has transformed reading and writing practices, it will explore the impact of developing telephone technologies on drama, fiction, poetry and non-fiction by a wide range of authors including Ali (1987), Carson (2009), Cocteau (1930), Greene (1978), Hurt (2016), Shamsie (2009), Spark (1959), Twain (1889) and Waugh (1930). The analysis will pay particular attention to the possibilities for technology to destabilise relations of presence and absence, near and far, and life and death; in so doing, it will draw on critical work by Agamben, Cixous, Derrida, Ronell and Szendy. While considerable research in telephony has been undertaken in media and film studies, its impact on the development of reading and writing practices remains neglected. Moreover, existing studies on telephony in critical theory date back to the 1980s. This monograph is timely; performing the effects of telephony on language and form, it will interrogate the telephone's role and representation in light of recent mobile, cellular and smartphone technologies.In a culture of heightened auditory surveillance and increased public awareness of the impact of smartphone technologies on public health and modes of interpersonal communication, this research has far-reaching significance beyond the academy. Unique to this cross-disciplinary project is a collaboration with the Science Museum, whose world-class resources include significant collections on global developments in telecommunications, and the BT Archives, the repository of the world's oldest communications company. Building on my experience as an award-winning poet, scholar and broadcaster, and working in collaboration with a range of research partners, this project incorporates a number of innovative activities including (i) an international 'Festival of the Phone' at the Science Museum, (ii) a Dial-a-Poem mobile app developed with the support of the National Poetry Library, (iii) a radio feature on telephony drawing on the collections at the BT Archives and Science Museum, (iv) a new collection of literary resources at BT Archives and online exhibition; and (v) a writing workshop series with the Youth Justice Service exploring forms of creative expression using smartphone technologies. Responding to current concerns surrounding telephone usage (e.g. text-speak, phone addiction, sexting), and contributing to high-profile scholarship in the field, this project brings together creative and critical approaches in order to investigate how our existing use of telecommunications can help us to find new ways of conceiving ethical and creative technological futures.