Hope and Wish Image in Music Technology [Hardcover]

This book proposes that new music technologies attract unconscious desires for socialism and collectivity, enabling millions of people living under capitalism to dream of repressed social alternatives. Grounded in the philosophical writings of Ernst Bloch and Walter Benjamin, the book examines file sharing technologies, streaming services, and media players, as well as their historical antecedents, such as the player piano, cassette tape, radio and compact disc, alongside interpretations of fiction, memoir, and albums. Through the concept of wish imagesthe unconscious hopes and desires for social alternatives that gather around new technologiesthe book identifies the repressed pre- and post-capitalist urges that attend our music technologies. While these desires typically remain unconscious and tend to pass away not only unmet but also unrecognized, Hope and Wish Image in Music Technology attempts to bring wishes for social alternatives to the surface at an auspicious moment of technological transition. 

Preface

Introduction: Audible Hope

Chapter 1: Wish Images and Wishful Images in Benjamin and Bloch

Chapter 2: The Music of Wish Images: Filesharing and Utopia

Chapter 3: The Mixtape as Wishtape: Heterotopia, Translation, and Nostalgia

Chapter 4: The Artist and Technology: William Gaddiss Agap Agape, or the Worlds Smallest Player Piano Playing Itself Just for You

Chapter 5: The Enemy Has Never Ceased to Be Victorious: Anne Frank and Neutral Milk Hotel

Chapter 6: Technology, Everyday Life, and Hope

Conclusion: The Happy Appearance and the Wishful Tendency in Cultural Criticism

David P. Rando is Associate Professor of English at Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas, USA. He is the author of Modernist Fiction and News: Rl“)