Voicing the Text

Why is voice so important to us? How does the concept of voice encompass such disparate practices as vocal sound, marks on a page, identity production and the execution of power? With these questions in mind, Voicing the Text investigates voice as a textual and a bodily phenomenon. In order to capture voice in all its complexity, the theoretical approach adopted here is eclectic and the method is interdisciplinary. What is investigated more specifically is voice in drama, and what happens to voice (and our conceptions and misconceptions about what voice is and can do) when voice is translated from a textual construct (a play) to an embodied entity (a film). By using both text and film, and by investigating the very translation, voice can be placed in a theoretical grid that problematizes the relation between subject, body, language and power. This is done by studying a number of plays that all investigate and problematize the issues at hand. What this book does, consequently, is investigate a classic literary field, but it also problematizes this field’s theoretical and ideological foundations by bringing it into an interdisciplinary area of investigation.