Peter Szendy

Peter Szendy is a French philosopher and musicologist born in Paris in 1966. He holds the David Herlihy Professorship of Humanities and Comparative Literature at Brown University. Szendy's scholarly work explores themes of listening, surveillance, and the intersection of philosophy with music, film, and literature. His book 'Listen: A History of Our Ears' critiques traditional notions of listening, proposing a deconstructive model where listening is seen as a 'tolerated theft.' In 'All Ears: The Aesthetics of Espionage' (originally 'Sur écoute'), he examines the power dynamics inherent in listening, drawing on thinkers like Foucault and Deleuze, and analyzing espionage through various cultural forms, from the Bible to spy films. Szendy has also delved into concepts of the body in music ('Phantom Limbs: On Musical Bodies'), the nature of reading ('Prophecies of Leviathan. Reading Past Melville'), and the philosophy of popular music ('Hits: Philosophy in the Jukebox'). His work on Kant, 'Kant in the Land of Extraterrestrials,' explores cosmopolitanism through the lens of extraterrestrial presence. More recently, he has focused on cinema and the end of the world in 'The Apocalypse-Cinema.' Szendy's writings often blend philosophical inquiry with cultural analysis, offering novel perspectives on perception and power.