Haydn’s impropriety

Haydn is known for his playful (mis)use of cadential formulas. Examining examples of this predilection and processes of cadential liquidation, this article develops a theory of the use of musical material. This entails a deconstruction of the Adornian dialectic between generic convention and particular expression and—following Jacques Derrida’s notion of exappropriation—between proper and improper, and propriety and impropriety

The time it takes to listen

This article argues that Beethoven’s Arietta Variations inscribe the activity of listening in their own melodic and harmonic processes. The argument proceeds from two observations: (1) that tonality anticipates the listening subject in the form of a “desire” to progress from dominant to tonic; (2) that the temporal representation produced by analysis is always minimally dislocated from the time of music’s sonic unfolding. A notion of “the time it takes to listen” describes the time it takes for the ear to bring to its completion the analytical representation of time and thereby accounts for this gap. An analysis focusing on the role of the trill demonstrates how the Arietta Variations reflect this supplementary temporality in their own unfolding

For transdisciplinarity

This response situates Stephen Amico’s provocation within the context of an intimate connection between postcolonial thought and the drive towards interdisciplinarity. It examines via three critical moments the deeply intertwined desires to destroy the colony on the one hand and disciplinarity on the other. To this end it analyses the debates around interdisciplinarity between Gayatri Spivak, Homi Bhabha, and Laurent Dubreuil, before turning to the explicit thematization of transdisciplinarity as part of the neoliberalization of the university. Finally, the essay turns to Hélène Cixous’s reflections in “Mon Algériance” to develop another way of thinking about the irreducible dispersal and dissemination of disciplinarity and its imbrication in the (post)colonial

Listening alone together. Political subjectivation in the time of pandemic

This short piece reflects on the challenges of poltical subjectivation at a time when organising largely had to move online. It also explores the play of liveness and mediation in mediatised street actions that have erupted in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd. The sense of isolation in both contexts stems not only from being physically apart from other activists but also from the loss of a common world. Following Derrida, it proposes that listening, as a form of carrying by ear in solitude after the end of the world, represents a way to interpellate caring subjects whose ecological attunement offers a possibility for repairing and recreating the world

Form and repetition : Deleuze, Guillaume and sonata theory

This article proposes an alternative way to think about the process of expositional closure. The recent resurgence of Formenlehre has given rise to a dispute about the correlation between expositional closure and the sequence of local perfect authentic cadences in the second group. Noting that the two sides of the debate produce opposing representations of the temporality of listening, I draw upon philosophical and linguistic models of actualisation to theorise the way in which expositional closure is realised across the second group. To this end, I focus on the refrain cadences in the first movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto in C minor, K. 491, which, as a means of deferring expositional closure, sit uneasily alongside other strategies of thematic loosening and cadential liquidation. The idea of the refrain leads me to Gilles Deleuze's theory of repetition and from there, via the notion of temps impliqué, to Gustave Guillaume's system of verb formation – both of which problematise the passage from potentiality to actuality, isolating a dimension of contingency as that which may or may not come to pass

Homofaunie : non-human tonalities of listening in Derrida and Cixous

In L’animal que donc je suis Jacques Derrida suggests that the question of what would be proper to the animal should ‘change tune’. I read this extraordinary passage, in which Derrida calls for us to lend an ear to an ‘unheard-of music’ that neither emancipates the non-human nor condemns it to inarticulate noise, in conjunction with the nexus of animality, telephony and the cri de la littérature that unfolds in Hélène Cixous’s writing, exploring the significant role assumed by the sonorous in these descriptions of non-human life. For Cixous, the telephonic power of near-instantaneous substitution and of prostheticity is inseparable from the sounds produced by the coterie of animals that populate the writings of these two authors. What is intriguing is that this bestiary is almost always said with a certain homonymy or homophony. Hence this article traces what I dub an ‘homofaunie’ echoing Cixous’s series of puns and neologisms such as ‘(t)elefaun’ and ‘(t)elephantasy’ that capture Derrida’s attention. The article asks what is at stake for theorizing non-human life – not just animal but also plant and so-called inanimate life – if the mode of questioning is to be redirected by a specifically aural attunement in which listening itself is retuned under the guidance of untranslatable homophony

Effects of the bioturbating marine yabby Trypaea australiensis on sediment properties in sandy sediments receiving mangrove leaf litter

Laboratory mesocosm incubations were undertaken to investigate the influence of burrowing shrimp Trypaea australiensis (marine yabby) on sediment reworking, physical and chemical sediment characteristics and nutrients in sandy sediments receiving mangrove (Avicennia marina) leaf litter. Mesocosms of sieved, natural T. australiensis inhabited sands, were continually flushed with fresh seawater and pre-incubated for 17 days prior to triplicates being assigned to one of four treatments; sandy sediment (S), sediment + yabbies (S+Y), sediment + leaf litter (organic matter; S+OM) and sediment + yabbies + leaf litter (S+Y+OM) and maintained for 55 days. Mangrove leaf litter was added daily to treatments S+OM and S+Y+OM. Luminophores were added to mesocosms to quantify sediment reworking. Sediment samples were collected after the pre-incubation period from a set of triplicate mesocosms to establish initial conditions prior to the imposition of the treatments and from the treatment mesocosms at the conclusion of the 55-day incubation period. Yabbies demonstrated a clear effect on sediment topography and leaf litter burial through burrow creation and maintenance, creating mounds on the sediment surface ranging in diameter from 3.4 to 12 cm. Within S+Y+OM sediments leaf litter was consistently removed from the surface to sub-surface layers with only 7.5% ± 3.6% of the total mass of leaf detritus added to the mesocosms remaining at the surface at the end of the 55-day incubation period. Yabbies significantly decreased sediment wet-bulk density and increased porosity. Additionally, T. australiensis significantly reduced sediment bio-available ammonium (NH4+bio) concentrations and altered the shape of the concentration depth profile in comparison to the non-bioturbated mesocosms, indicating influences on nutrient cycling and sediment-water fluxes. No significant changes for mean apparent biodiffusion coefficients (Db) and mean biotransport coefficients (r), were found between the bioturbated S+Y and S+Y+OM mesocosms. The findings of this study provide further evidence that T. australiensis is a key-species in shallow intertidal systems playing an important role as an ‘ecosystem engineer’ in soft-bottom habitats by significantly altering physical and chemical structures and biogeochemical function

Lunar elemental composition and ivestigations with D-CIXS x-ray mapping spectrometer on SMART-1

The D-CIXS Compact X-ray Spectrometer on ESA SMART-1 successfully launched in Sept 2003 can derive 45 km resolution images of the Moon with a spectral resolution of 185 eV, providing the first high-resolution global map of rock forming element abundances

CMOS Monolithic Active Pixel Sensors (MAPS) for future vertex detectors

This paper reviews the development of CMOS Monolithic Active Pixel Sensors (MAPS) for future vertex detectors. MAPS are developed in a standard CMOS technology. In the imaging field, where the technology found its first applications, they are also known as CMOS Image Sensors. The use of MAPS as a detector for particle physics was first proposed at the end of 1999. Since then, their good performance in terms of spatial resolution, efficiency, radiation hardness have been demonstrated and work is now well under way to deliver the first MAPS-based vertex detectors.Comment: Invited talk at International Symposium on the Development of Detectors for Particle, AstroParticle and Synchrtron Radiation Experiments, Stanford Ca (SNIC06) 4 pages, pdf, 2 TIFF figures, PSN000