The Politics of Sound

Organized by students from the Joint Graduate Program in Communication and Culture at York University and X* University in Toronto, ON, CA. Intersections | Cross- sections acknowledges its presence on the traditional territory of multiple Indigenous Nations. 

How might sound intervene to disrupt the status quo? For the 2022 edition of the IS|CS Conference & Art Exhibition, we invite you to reflect on the potential uses, materiality, affective and embodied dimensions of the sonic. Recognizing that sound and listening practices are never neutral, our conference emphasizes scholarship and creative work that engages with sound and aurality through the lens of race, gender, sexuality, technology, disability, imperialism, and/or colonialism. 

Though the formation of ‘Sound Studies’ as a discipline is relatively new, the study of sound has long been, and continues to be, an important preoccupation in disability studies, Black studies, Indigenous studies, gender studies, queer and trans studies, amongst other disciplines. As feminist sound scholar Annie Goh asks in her recent article, “Sounding Situated Knowledges,” what is at stake in considering how sound and listening produce knowledge? What role can sound scholarship and sound art play in disrupting dominant systems of power, narrative, and hegemonic epistemologies? 

With IS|CS 2022, we hope to foster critical dialogue and reflection on the sociopolitical aspects of sound while gesturing towards epistemological, ontological and relational frameworks that move us away from the oppressive structures of capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, and racism, towards new political imaginaries and other, more hopeful futures. 

We will be featuring both academic and creative contributions for the annual conference (Intersections) and art exhibition (Cross-sections). This year’s conference will take place March 18-19, 2022 in a virtual format.

Register here. 

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