Online Reading Group: Sonic Cyberfeminism

FYI:

In recent years, the relationship between sound, gender and technology has gained increasing attention. There have been a number of practitioner networks, informational resources, theoretical interventions, archives and educational initiatives established in the hope of tackling the gendered exclusions from and disparities within the technocentric fields of electronic music and audio production. Many of these projects can be understood to share some of the concerns and ideals of cyberfeminism. Emerging in the early 1990s, cyberfeminism sought to explore the potentials and possibilities of technology, computing and Cyberspace for feminist praxis. However, to talk of cyberfeminism or indeed a cyberfeminist ethos in the singular is something of a misnomer: we consider it more appropriate to speak of plural cyberfeminisms, with various agendas, methods, perspectives and priorities.

This reading group will focus on the issue of decolonizing sonic cyberfeminisms. It will raise questions about the Eurocentric conceptualisations of technology, sound and gender implicit in much recent activism around these themes.

The reading group will take place from 4th November to 2nd December with a short reading or readings for each week. Discussions will take place via email.

To sign up, please email: soniccyberfeminisms[at]gmail.com

Please send a couple of lines about yourself and why you’re signing up to the reading group when registering.

Readings include:

• Alexander Weheliye, ‘I am, I be: The subject of Sonic Afro-Modernity’
• Ursula Le Guin, ‘A Rant about Technology’
• Michelle Wright, ‘Racism, Technology and the Limits of Western Knowledge’
• Louis Chude-Sokei, ‘Prognostigating echoes: race, sound and naturalizing technology’
• Tara Rodgers, ‘Cultivating activist lives in sound’
• Sharmi Basu, ‘Decolonizing sound’