Robert Ashley and the Tourettic Voice
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Keywords
Tourette Syndrome, Robert Ashley, music and disability
Abstract
This article explores notions of subjectivity and voice in American composer Robert Ashley’s composition, “Automatic Writing.” Ashley links his own (alleged) experience of Tourette Syndrome with his compositional process. The “Tourettic voice” that emerges in Ashley’s music challenges normative conceptions of unified subjectivity and the ontology of presence.
References
Kushner, H. I. (1999). A cursing brain? The history of Tourette Syndrome. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Miller, J. (2001). The voice in Tourette Syndrome. New Literary History, 32, 519-536.
Sacks, O. (1987). Witty Ticcy Ray. In The man who mistook his wife for a hat and other clinical tales (pp. 92-101). New York: Harper & Row.
Sacks, O. (1992). Tourette’s and creativity. British Medical Journal, 305, 1515-1516.
Schleifer, R. (2001). The poetics of Tourette Syndrome: Language, neurobiology, and poetry. New Literary History, 32, 563-584.
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Gavin Steingo
Gavin Steingo has published articles in Popular Music and Society, African Identities, and Black Music Research Journal (forthcoming). In addition to his scholarly pursuits, Gavin is a guitarist and composer. He is currently a Ph.D. student in Anthropology of Music at the University of Pennsylvania.