ethical listening

This is a mixed format episode presenting SpokenWeb members Mathieu Aubin and Stéphanie Ricci’s critical commentary after taking part in the organization of and attending the Listening, Sound, Agency Symposium. Bridging techniques from journalism and oral history, this episode includes sounds from the conference, interviews, and critically reflective discussions between Mathieu and Stéphanie. This episode was produced by Mathieu Aubin and Stéphanie Ricci, with audio engineering by Scott Girouard.

This episode explores the Symposium from the perspective of a first-time conference attendee coupled with a veteran attendee; these join the voices of multiple conference participants. Mathieu and Stéphanie focus on the process of organizing, holding, and listening to the 2021 SpokenWeb Symposium, and they discuss its themes of listening, sound, and agency as they emerge through the presentations and discussions. The episode begins with the theme of listening ethically and intentionally, before diving into a discussion of issues surrounding sound politics. It concludes with the topic of agency in relation to the amplification of sound as a potential means of empowerment. 

A special thanks to the 2021 Listening, Sound, Agency organizing committee, especially Jason Camlot, Klara DuPLessis, Deanna Fong, Katherine McLeod, Angus Tarnawsky, and Salena Wiener, whose voices are featured at the beginning of the episode.

SpokenWeb is a monthly podcast produced by the SpokenWeb team as part of distributing the audio collected from (and created using) Canadian Literary archival recordings found at universities across Canada. To find out more about Spokenweb visit: spokenweb.ca . If you love us, let us know! Rate us and leave a comment on Apple Podcasts or say hi on our social media @SpokenWebCanada.

Episode Producers:

Mathieu Aubin is a Research Affiliate at Concordia University and Principal Investigator of the SSHRC IDG project “Listening Queerly Across Generational Divides.” He is also a Research Associate at Higher Education Strategy Associates where he provides advice to postsecondary institutions on how to improve equity in higher education across Canada.

Stéphanie Ricci is an undergraduate student completing a journalism major with a sociology minor at Concordia University. Passionate about storytelling in all forms, Stéphanie is a contributing writer for the Forbes Leadership section, and scriptwriter for The CEO Series radio show with Karl Moore. Stephanie has previously worked on SpokenWeb’s online presence and outreach tactics as social media coordinator. Her past experiences also include working as an investigative reporter for the Institute for Investigative Journalism, volunteer copy editor for Her Campus Media, and production intern with CityNews Montreal.

Audio Engineering:

Scott Girouard is a Front-End Developer based in Toronto, Canada with a lifelong background in music and creative practice.

Audio Credits:

Kvelden Trapp from Blue Dot Sessions: https://app.sessions.blue/browse/track/94421

Citations:

Bergé, Carole. 1964. The Vancouver Report. FU Press.

Brittingham Furlonge, Nicole. May 19, 2021. “‘New Ways to Make Us Listen’: Exploring the Possibilities for Sonic Pedagogy.” 

Du Plessis, Klara. May 21, 2021. “From Poetry Reading to Performance Art: Agency of Deep Curation Practice.” 

McLeod, Dayna. May 18, 2021. “Queerly Circulating Sound and Affect in Intimate Karaoke, Live at Uterine Concert Hall. 

Robinson, Dylan. May 19, 2021. “Giving/Taking Notice.” 

Sun Eidsheim, Nina. May 20, 2021. “Re-writing Algorithms for Just Recognition: From Digital Aural Redlining to Accent Activism.”

This episode was created by SpokenWeb contributors Deanna Fong (Concordia University) and Michael O’Driscoll (University of Alberta), with additional audio courtesy of the radiofreerainforest Fonds at Simon Fraser University’s Special Collections; the Hartmut Lutz Collection, made digitally available by the SSHRC-funded People and the Text project (https://thepeopleandthetext.ca/); and support from Jason Camlot, Hannah McGregor, Stacey Copeland, and Judith Burr. Special thanks to Deanna Reder and Alix Shield of The People and the Text Project, and to Mathieu Aubin, bill bissett, Hartmut Lutz, Maria Campbell, and T.L. Cowan for permission to share interview and performance audio. 

SpokenWeb is a monthly podcast produced by the SpokenWeb team as part of distributing the audio collected from (and created using) Canadian Literary archival recordings found at universities across Canada. To find out more about Spokenweb visit: spokenweb.ca . If you love us, let us know! Rate us and leave a comment on Apple Podcasts or say hi on our social media @SpokenWebCanada.

Episode Producers:

Deanna Fong is a SSHRC-funded Postdoctoral Fellow at Concordia University where her research project, “Towards an Ethics of Listening in Literary Study” intersects the fields of Oral History and Literature through an investigation of interviewing and listening practices. She co-directs the audio/multimedia archives of Fred Wah, and has done significant cataloguing and critical work on the audio archives of Roy Kiyooka. Her critical work appears in the recent publications Canlit Across Media (MQUP, 2019) and Pictura: Essays on the Works of Roy Kiyooka (Guernica Editions, 2020). With Karis Shearer, she co-edited Wanting Everything: The Collected Works of Gladys Hindmarch (Talonbooks, 2020).

Michael O’Driscoll is a Professor in the Department of English and Film Studies in the Faculty of Arts, and Special Advisor to the Provost as Convenor for Congress 2021 at the University of Alberta. He teaches and publishes in the fields of critical and cultural theories with a particular emphasis on deconstruction and psychoanalysis, and his expertise in Twentieth-Century American Literature focuses on poetry and poetics as a form of material culture studies. His interests in material culture range from sound studies, archive theory, radical poetics, and technologies of writing to the energy humanities and intermedia studies. He is a Governing Board Member and a member of the UAlberta research team for the SpokenWeb SSHRC Partnership Grant.

Interviewees:

Mathieu Aubin is a Horizon Postdoctoral Fellow at Concordia University where he is co-leading the Oral Literary History project. His work currently focuses on the role of literary events in advancing LGBTQ2+ social justice initiatives in Canada since the second half of the twentieth century. He has published on queerness and feminism in Vancouver’s small presses and literary magazines in Canadian Literature.

Clint Burnham was born in Comox, British Columbia, which is on the traditional territory of the K’ómoks (Sathloot) First Nation, centred historically on kwaniwsam. He lives and teaches on the traditional ancestral territories of the Coast Salish peoples, including traditional territories of the Squamish (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw), Tsleil-Waututh (səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ), Musqueam (xʷməθkʷəy̓əm), and Kwikwetlem (kʷikʷəƛ̓əm) Nations. Clint is Professor and Chair of the Graduate Program, Department of English, Simon Fraser University and works on psychoanalysis, Marxist theory, Indigenous literature, and digital culture. His most recent book is Does the Internet have an Unconscious? Slavoj Žižek and Digital Culture, (Bloomsbury, 2018), and he is co-editing, with Paul Kingsbury, Lacan and the Environment forthcoming in 2021 from Palgrave. (Photo by Chris Brayshaw)

Treena Chambers is a Métis scholar who has worked as a bookseller, union organizer, researcher, and writer. She has a BA from SFU in International Studies and is currently a Masters' student in the SFU School of Public Policy. She brings her experience as a mature student and her Métis background into her studies of decolonization and identity. Her 2018 essay "Hair Raizing" was shortlisted by the Indigenous Voices Awards, as well her 2020 work "Forest Fires and Falling Stars." She has also contributed work to the book "unsettling EDUCATIONAL MODERNISM".

T.L. Cowan is an Assistant Professor of Media Studies (Digital Media Cultures) in the Department of Arts, Culture and Media (UTSC) and the Faculty of Information (iSchool) at the University of Toronto. T.L.’s research focuses on cultural and intellectual economies and networks of trans- feminist and queer (TFQ) and other minoritized digital media and performance practices. This work includes a monograph, entitled Transmedial Drag and Other Cross-Platform Cabaret Methods, nearing completion. T.L. is also a performance artist, who appears in alter-ego form on cabaret stages and in video screens as Mrs Trixie Cane. 

Credits:

The following are Creative Commons attribution licenses

Take Me To the Cabaret by Billy MurrayOld phonograph “Cabaret”

https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Antique_Phonograph_Music_Program_Various_Artists/Antique_Phonograph_Music_Program_05052009/Take_Me_to_the_Cabaret

Night on the Docks by Kevin McLeod

https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Kevin_MacLeod/Jazz_Sampler/Night_on_the_Docks_-_Sax

Blur the World by Tagirijus

https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Manuel_Senfft/Easy_2018/manuel_senfft_-_blur_the_world

Queer Noise by isabel nogueira e luciano zanatta

https://freemusicarchive.org/music/isabel_nogueira_e_luciano_zanatta/unlikely_objects/07_-_isabel_nogueira_e_luciano_zanatta_-_unlikely_objects_objetos_improvveis_-_queer_noise

The following are spoken word performance clips

Mathieu Aubin interviews bill bissett, courtesy of recordist.

“Mayakovsky” by the Four Horsemen, courtesy of Radiofreerainforest, Simon Fraser University, Special Collections and Rare Books. 

Hartmut Lutz interviews Maria Campbell, courtesy of The People and the Text, 

T.L. Cowan performance of Mrs. Trixie Cane at Edgy Women Festival, courtesy of performer.