Vocal Projections: Voices in Documentary examines a previously neglected topic in the field of documentary studies: the political, aesthetic, and affective functions that voices assume. On topics ranging from the celebrity voice over to ventriloquism, from rockumentary screams to feminist vocal politics, these essays demonstrate myriad ways in which voices make documentary meaning beyond their expository, evidentiary and authenticating functions.
The international range of contributors offers an innovative approach to the issues relating to voices in documentary. While taking account of the existing paradigm in documentary studies pioneered by Bill Nichols, in which voice is equated with political rhetoric and subjective representation, the contributors move into new territory, addressing current and emerging research in voice, sound, music and posthumanist studies.
I. Voices, Bodies and Power
1.Playing God: Film stars as documentary narrators
Annabelle Honess Roe
2.Auditing the Call Centre Voice: Accented Speech and Listening in Sonali Gulati's Nalini by Day, Nancy by Night (2005)
Pooja Rangan
3.The Fundamental Lie: Lip Sync, Dubbing, Ventriloquism and the Othering of Voice in Documentary Media
Patrik Sjöberg
II. Voices Beyond Language
4.Hearing Voices in Singer-Songwriter Music Documentaries
Maria Pramaggiore
5.'The Voice' and Sound in Indian Documentary Film: Listen to Surabhi Sharma's Bidesia in Bambai (2013)
Deborah Matzner
6.Hum, Buzz, Gurgle: Ecological Soundscapes in Poetic Ecodocs
Shilyh Warren
7.Literally Documenting her Voice: Valie Export's Vocal-Visual Experiments with Screen Media
Helen Hughes
III. Gender, Sexuality and Species
8.The Voice of Mockumentary
Sarah Kessler
9.Fabulous Thinking, Chimeric Voice: Kathy High's Lily Does Derrida: A Dog's Video (2010)
Brenda Hollweg
10.Animating Voices, Onscreen and Off, in Kathleen Shannon's Working Mothers (1974-5)
Jean Walton
IV. Documentary Modes and Techniques
11.The Voice in Documentary Sound Design: A Digital Revolution
Chris Cagle
12.Kazuhiro Soda's Migrant Voices
Luke Robinson
13.Vocal Hierarchy in Documentary
James Nicholson
V. Time, Testimony and History
14.Crime Documentary's Confessing Voice.
Kristen Fuhs
15.Sounds of Disillusionment and Discord: When Pasolini and Sontag Visited Israel
Ohad Landesman
16.Beyond Words: Speech, Ethical Time and the Politics of the Local in Nicholas Philibert's Retour en Normandie (2007)
Rhiannon Harries
