Please note: This presentation is postponed until February 15 2022.
Abstract
The paper will initiate a dialogue regarding the concept of rhythm in between philosophical, sociological, musicological and literary positions.
In academic discussions as well as in everyday life rhythm is primarily designated as being part of aesthetic expressions as for instance dance, music, literature. In this setting rhythm deals with form – with course of events that consist of repetitions. Rhythm as subdivision in parts of course of events that are articulated with weak and strong stresses.
This last part is crucial, a rhythm is not solely to be heard as repetitions of structural forms, it is articulated and sensed. In rhythm repetition and variation are interrelated, as Anne Danielsen has stated (2018).
These qualitative experiences of rhythm can take place in a number of contexts which I will discuss, also pointing to, in dialogue with Henri Lefebvre, the aspect of rhythm as happening in the interplay between time, events and energy(1992).
The outline of my presentation is to form a prism of rhythm from a number of differentiated cultural and aesthetic areas of our life, pointing to how rhythm is taking part in how we socially and rhetorically attune in to surroundings. Rhythm has to do with how a modern life is structured and experienced, and the paper will discuss this by outlining an interdisciplinary concept of rhythm borrowing from different academic disciplines.
Bio
Birgitte Stougaard Pedersen (born 1970) PhD, Head of Centre for Literature between Media, Aarhus University and Associate Professor at Aesthetics and Culture, Aarhus University.
BSP has written on literature between media, digital audiobooks, rhythm, the voice, aesthetics and meaning theory in the interrelationship between literature and music. Between 2006 and 2009 BSP worked on Danish rap music in her post doctoral research project “Rhythm, groove and gesture in Danish hiphop, between the local and the global”. Among her publications is Lyd, litteratur og musik: Gestus i kunstoplevelsen (2008) and Rytme (2020) and with Iben Have: Digital Audiobook: New Media, Users, and Experiences (Routledge 2016). She has co-edited Hiphop i Skandinavien (2008) and Off Beat - Pluralizing Rhythm (2013), Kreativ Markedskommunikation (2017), Litteratur mellem Medier (2018) and a special issue of Poetics today, named “Modes of Reading” (2021). She has together with Iben Have from 2011-2018 worked on a research project concerning the digital renaissance of the audiobook, a number of articles as well as the volume mentioned above. From 2018-2022 she is leading the collaborative research project Reading between Media – Multisensorial Reading in a Digital Age (Novo foundation). She is one of the founding editors of the online journal SoundEffects - Interdisciplinary Journal of Sound and Sound Experience.