TLRH| Sonic Spaces |Gendered Soundscapes

Wednesday, 10 March 2021, 7 – 8pm A panel discussion as part of the ‘Sonic Spaces’ series. Discourse around gender and sound often reflects biases about who should be allowed to take up sonic space: from historical assumptions that women’s voices were unsuitable for the radio, to contemporary biases in institutional policies that work to exclude the work of women in the music industry, as well as continued critiques of female speaking voices for expressing unappealing vocal traits like “uptalk” and “vocal fry”. This event will bring together a diverse panel to discuss these and other ways in which sonic spaces can reflect broader social and cultural issues around gender and representation: Dr. Megan McGurk, host of the popular podcast and film club, “Sass Mouth Dames”, devoted to women who ruled the Hollywood box office from the 1930s-1950s; Dr. Ann Cleare, a multi-award-winning composer and Assistant Professor in Trinity’s Music and Media Technologies programme who will introduce “Sounding the Feminists,” an Irish-based collective committed to promoting and publicising the creative work of female musicians; and Dr. Jilly Boyce Kay, Lecturer in Media and Communication at the University of Leicester and author of Gender, Media and Voice (2020), who will discuss the ways that feminist voices on television were construed as “domestic nags” in the 1970s. The panel will be chaired by Dr. Ciara Barrett, a scholar of gender and screen media and lecturer in film studies with the Dingle Hub and Sacred Heart University. ‘Sonic Spaces’ is organised by Jennifer O’Meara, Department of Film, as part of the Creative Arts Practice Research theme. The series considers the creative possibilities of audio and sound culture as they relate to issues of society, technology, the environment and the body. It aims to encourage the academic and broader community to reflect on our relationship to listening and its significance. ‘Sonic Spaces’ is supported by the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute. Learn more at: https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/