Congratulations to Dr. Samuel Rowland, who successfully defended his defence on September 22. His supervisor was Dr. Kevin McGuirk and the committee members were Dr. Ken Hirschkop and Dr. Victoria Lamont. The internal/external was Dr. Andrew Hunt, and the external examiner was Dr. Thomas Carmichael. The defense was chaired by Dr. Sanjay Nepal.
Abstract
Sounds of the Land of Promise: Listening to Ralph Ellison’s Metaphors of Memory in Invisible Man
This
project
studies
Ralph
Ellison’s
incorporation
of
sonic
memory,
soundscapes
(sonic
environments),
and
music
into
his
novel
Invisible
Man
(1952).
The
central
focus
of
this
dissertation
is
the
influence
of
the
sonic
on
Ellison’s
work,
beyond
his
interest
in
jazz.
This
project
argues
that
Ellison’s
work
incorporates
his
memories
of
sound
and
music
as
well
as
the
sonic
imagery
and
philosophies
of
the
sonic
he
draws
from
his
literary
influences,
namely
T.S.
Eliot,
James
Joyce,
and
Fyodor
Dostoevsky.
I
approach
Invisible
Man
as
a
semi-autobiographical
text,
which
I
argue
transfigures
Ellison’s
own
sonic
experiences
into
fiction.
I
draw
on
Ellison’s
essays,
interviews,
and
letters,
as
well
as
the
two
major
biographies
on
Ellison,
Lawrence
Jackson’s
Ralph
Ellison:
Emergence
of
Genius
(2002)
and
Arnold
Rampersad’s
Ralph
Ellison:
A
Biography
(2007),
in
order
to
contextualize
the
sonic
elements
and
metaphors
of
memory
that
Ellison
integrates
into
the
soundscapes
of
Invisible
Man.
This project argues that Ellison is an “earwitness” who draws on the sonic in his work in order to emphasize the significance of listening as well as draw attention to overlooked African-American soundscapes. Carolyn Birdsall elaborates on the term “earwitness” as follows: “In 1977, Raymond Murray Schafer defined the earwitness as an author who lived in the historical past, and who can be trusted ‘when writing about sounds directly experienced and intimately known’ (1994 [1977], p. 6). Schafer’s understanding of the earwitness endorses the authority of literary texts for conveying an authentic experience of historical sounds” (169). Essentially, Ellison and his novel’s narrator are concerned with both the intimacy of listening and the critical consideration of the psychological and personal impact of diverse and unique sound memories and soundscapes.
I employ a variety of approaches in my study of Ellison’s use of the sonic in his work – including history, autobiography, analysis, and compositional method – in order to contextualize the nuances of sonic experience that inform Ellison’s writing. I begin this project with a study of the historical context that informs Ellison’s work, and then I gradually introduce analytical perspectives of the sonic as the dissertation progresses. I scaffold this project in this way in order to foreground the historical, contextual, and subjective uniqueness of listening before I apply scholarly approaches and analysis of the sonic to Ellison’s work later in the dissertation. Chapters One and Two are history-based, as I provide historical context on Harlem’s soundscapes and Ellison’s education at the Tuskegee Institute. Chapters Three and Chapter Four are analytical approaches to Ellison’s use of the sonic which build on the background information I provide in Chapters One and Two. Chapter Five blends sonic analysis, autobiographical and historical context, and compositional method in order to demonstrate the breadth of Ellison’s nuanced integration of the sonic into his writing.