This unit explores the role of sound in the literature and art of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries. Sound is discussed as the subject matter of literature; as a feature of the performance or reading of a text; and as the medium for non-literary and non-musical artworks. The unit begins with discussion of the impact of industrialisation and recording technology in the nineteenth century. It then moves on to look at the ways in which the changing aural landscape of the early twentieth century is recorded in some literary texts. The course also explores the treatment of sound and language in some major modernist texts and in such movements as Futurism and Dada. Students will read examples of drama and contemporary poetry. Students will be introduced to sound-oriented works written for the screen and to the relatively new field of sound art.