http://tags.library.upenn.edu/tag/Modernity+coming_of_sound PennTags Feed http://tags.library.upenn.edu/makerecord/voyager/5365 http://tags.library.upenn.edu/makerecord/voyager/5365 <div class="mlacite">Lastra, James.. <span style="text-decoration: underline">Sound technology and the American cinema : perception, representation, modernity / James Lastra.</span> [0231115164 (cloth : alk. paper)] New York : Columbia University Press, c2000. <br />Call#: Van Pelt Library PN1995.7 .L37 2000</div><br /> James Lastra situates the development of sound technology within the context of modernity with special attention paid to the relation of sound to other representational technologies such as photography and phonography. The book attempts to trace the exchanges and shifting relationships between human senses, technologies, and forms of representation (i.e., senses shaped technology development and those devices shaped our sensory experiences). The first couple chapters are a more general account of the material history of sound technology as both a means of simulating the sensory capacities of the ear and as a means of &quot;writing&quot; sound. The remaining chapters are nominally about the cinema beginning with the coming of sound and moving through the classical Hollywood system. Overall, Lastra's book is indebted to cultural theorists of modernity (Benjamin, Comolli, Adorno) which is not surpising as Lastra teaches at Chicago along with other modernity film scholars Tom Gunning and Miriam Hansen. The book has many strengths including giving ample attention to the practices and theories of early film sound technicians and engineers (and not just academic theorists), but suffers a bit from lack of attention to actual films themselves. Chapters 5 &amp; 6 claim to examine the relationship between sound aesthetics, technology and film form, but while attention is paid to various sound technologies and ideas of &quot;realism&quot; there is little attention paid to demonstrating their effect on the form of actual films. Still, it is a well written and interesting book that will be especially useful for those interested in modernity, technology and theories of representation. <br />