So I'm a classics major, I've gone almost a year without writing a history paper, and it has been really bugging me. This assignment seemed suitably vague to be coopted into filling this void. Reading habits in ancient Greece and Rome have intrigued me for quite sometime, but I have never quite gotten around to researching them. It seemed like a good fit. The only issue was the "future" part of the course title. How could I relate reading habits in ancient Rome with e-books?
So far, I haven't. Instead, I decided to compare the recent surge in the popularity of e-books with the oral culture that existed in Greece and Rome. The question that I have set out to answer is are audiobooks a return to that old oral culture, or are they something new and different? So far, I have found evidence to support both possible answers. For example, in both cases the reading is primarily done by a professional. On the other hand, in Greece and Rome these performances were a social activity involving a bunch of people. This social aspect seems to be missing from audiobooks. When was the last time your friend invited you over to listen to the latest Malcolm Gladwell book?
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| Notice that the book is hooked up to headphones, not speakers. |
Anyway, that's the way that my project is going so far. It's been quite interesting so far and hopefully it will remain so (though experience indicates that the actual writing will be a bit of a drag). I hope everyone else is enjoying their projects and that everything goes well.
Not to throw a wrench in your topic (which sounds very interesting), but my cousin actually did invite me over to listen to a part of a Malcolm Gladwell one time. When I couldn't make it, he sent me the audio file. My mum and I also used to listen to audiobooks all the time on long drives (although it took us a long time to realize that the library also had audiobooks, so we always listened to the same Jekyll and Hyde tape).
ReplyDeleteI used to like to fall asleep to audiobooks when I was little, but it was never as good as having one of my parents read to me, which was always a much more engaging experience. It was an opportunity to learn about literary techniques, poetic metre, or to build vocabulary. In that sense, being read to was never just about hearing a story, which is how I have typically experienced audiobooks.
You raise an excellent point. I suppose "missing" was too strong a word. There certainly are social aspects to audiobooks. I have also used them on long car rides with my family. But solitary aspect seems to be much more prominent. Like you, I used to listen to audiobooks when I went to sleep and one of my friends listens to them while he's plowing fields. Also, there is the remove between the performer and the audience that was not present in Greece and Rome. But that's really interesting that your cousin invited you over to listen to an audiobook. That kind of experience certainly would have strong parallels with Greek symposia.
ReplyDeleteEric, I love your paper topic! I agree, audiobooks do tend to be more solitary nowadays, though there are exceptions such as Sally's and the car-ride group listening which many of us probably experienced.
ReplyDeleteYou raised a point in your reply that was raised in class the other day (not last week, maybe the week before?), which is the live/recorded dichotomy. This always bothered me a bit that audiobooks never changed. The expression was always the same, and in a well-loved audiobook (I'm thinking of kids' materials again) the reading at some point becomes almost like music, in the sense that the meaning of the words matters less than the sound of the reader's voice. While, on the one hand, it is pleasant to anticipate exactly what the line sounds like (and maybe even say it along with the tape!), I agree with Sally that live reading was always more engaging to me.
Not sure if this made sense (my brain is on the verge of collapse at the end of the semester as usual). In any case, sounds like you have a really fascinating topic. Best of luck!
Hi Eric,
ReplyDeleteVery cool topic for a final essay. When I think of public listening now, I often think of YouTube parties. In fact, I got kind of obsessed with YouTube parties for a while and did some research on them for another class. I am not sure how sitting around watching and listening to videos relates to old Greek read-alouds, but I am sure you could find an angle.
Also, I wanted to comment on the live/recorded dichotomy that Polina mentioned, and that we talked about in class. However, she did a better job than I would have. The dichotomy might be a very interesting place to go with your essay.
Best of luck.
Hey Eric, I hope your research is going well. I was on the ALA site and I stumbled across an article that reminded me of your project. I'm not sure it will be helpful, but I figured it's worth posting. It's called, "Use of Audiobooks in a School Library and Positive Effects of Struggling Readers’ Participation in a Library-Sponsored Audiobook Club". There might be something here with respect to future users of e-books/audiobooks. Perhaps it will open a new avenue to explore.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ala.org/aasl/sites/ala.org.aasl/files/content/aaslpubsandjournals/slr/vol16/SLR_Use_of_AudiobooksV16.pdf