July 7, 2000

Sound Is No Less Tied to History Than Time, Scholar Writes; New Publisher Plans to Save Poetry From Esoterica and Convention, but Not 'Lyric Adventurism'

By SUSANNAH TULLY and JEFF SHARLET

SOUND, SIGNIFYING EVERYTHING: The old stomping grounds of historical inquiry -- bloody battles, political maneuvers, class wars, cultural artifacts -- are well trodden. But Mark M. Smith, an associate professor of history at the University of South Carolina at Columbia, heard his scholarly calling in another, often overlooked, element of the past: sound.

A native Englishman whose fascination with the economic forces behind slavery brought him to South Carolina

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