The Soundscape of Darkness

A philosophical reflection on the soundscape that vibrates throughout Heart of Darkness, this essay sounds the political and metaphysical implications of Conrad's most famous tale. Thinking both with and beyond Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism, the article argues that the excess of racist violence Conrad makes us hear is as constitutive of the horror of colonialism in Africa as it is prefigurative of the horror of Nazism in Europe. Less audibly, but not less profoundly, echoes of Conrad's soundscape of darkness can still be registered at the heart of the contemporary body politic in the age of post-truth.