The National Endowment for the Humanities underwrote a digital access book about sexuality in Victorian literature by a Siena College Professor.
The State University of New York received $6,600 to create an open access edition of Professor Shannon Draucker’s book, titled “Sounding Bodies: Acoustical Science and Musical Erotics in Victorian Literature.” The NEH’s Open Book Program “supports the conversion of recently published books funded by NEH into eBooks that are freely available online.”
This is on the top of the $6,000 Draucker herself previously received for the book.
The book compares listening to music to orgasms, according to an NEH description.
“Can the concert hall be as erotic as the bedroom? Many Victorian writers believed so,” the description states.
The book reports how 19th-century “acoustical scientists” “described music as a set of physical vibrations that tickled the ear, excited the nerves, and precipitated muscular convulsions.”
“In turn, writers—from canonical figures such as George Eliot and Thomas Hardy, to New Women novelists like Sarah Grand and Bertha Thomas, to anonymous authors of underground pornography—depicted bodily sensations and experiences in unusually explicit ways,” the book states.
The Fix reached out to Draucker and asked via email if she believed she may have a harder time receiving grants from the NEH under the Trump Administration. She did not respond to emails and phone calls in the past month and a half.
The Fix also emailed Rebecca Colesworthy, the recipient of the open access grant, and asked what the money goes to and if she had any concerns about the funds being taken back by the Trump administration. She did not respond to an email on Sept. 19.
Hellbound and Down 