Johan Gardfors

Bio

Johan Gardfors is a senior lecturer in comparative literature at Karlstad University where he teaches literary history and creative writing. His research focuses on intermedia aesthetics, modernity, and the tradition of the avant-garde. Recent publications include an edited book on photography and literature, an essay on Barbara Cassin’s poetics of translation, and a discussion of the modernist legacy of Paolo Uccello’s depictions of horses and birds.

Contributions

Demilitarization of Languages: Sound Poetry in Austria, France, and Sweden

Peer Reviewed

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As one of the paradigmatic literary genres of both the historical avant-garde and the neo-avant-garde, sound poetry should not merely be understood in terms of formal experimentation, but also as an intervention into the politics of language: to speak with John Cage, a kind of “demilitarization of language.” [1] Cage, however, understood this notion on a highly formal level, with influences from the philosophy of Zen, seeking to refrain from imposing expressions of the ego on his materials. In...

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avant-garde sound