Talks
Selected Talks
2024
Time, Disability, and the Making of an Opera: Jerron Herman in Conversation with Mara Mills, The Center for Ballet and the Arts (January 29)
(with Andy Slater) Sounding New Sonic Approaches, SpokenWeb, Concordia University (February 12, zoom)
A Decade After “Sound Studies Meets Deaf Studies”: Christine Sun Kim’s Deaf Graphic Lexicon, Sound/Text Seminar, Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard (February 27)
There is No Such Thing as Artificial Hearing: Cochlear Implants become Vocoders (1964-1978), Klopsteg Lecture Series, Northwestern (April 8)
Deaf Hearing/Deaf Audiology (with Michele Friedner), Keynote, Mechanics of Hearing Conference (Ann Arbor, June 12)
Digital Frictions panel, DISCO Summit 2024 (Ann Arbor, June 14)
(with Georgina Kleege) Joseph Grigely Closing Celebration: Crip Authorship Author Talk, Mass MoCA (June 22)
2023
Speaking Texts: Recordings in/and Preservation, Accessibility, and Indigeneity, Bibliography Week (The Bibliographical Society of America, January 24)
Disappeared Disabilities, Massachusetts Historical Society (February 8)
The History of ‘Impairment’, Office Supplies Conference (Pitt, Feb 24-25)
Accessibility in the Cultural Sector Panel, 2nd Annual Yale Disability & Accessibility Symposium (April 4)
Digital Activism in Pandemic Times Symposium, University of Pennsylvania Annenberg (April 17)
(commentator) Tuning Diplomacy: Music, Media, and the Soft Power of Empires, NYU Center for the Humanities (May 2)
Crip Authorship pre-launch panel, Performative Book Fair (Kampnagel, online May 12)
Local Lives: A Celebration of the Writings of Millen Brand and Pauline Leader, Wunderbarn, East Greenville, PA (May 19)
Switchboard Automation and the Disability History of 0s and 1s, STS and CSIS Colloquium, UC Davis (June 2)
Disability as Method, Princeton Media + Modernity Program (September 12)
Dismédiations Conference Keynote (with Jonathan Sterne), La Générale, Paris/hybrid (October 20)
The History of Impairment, The Corner Society, Rochester Academy of Medicine (November 1)
Departments of History/STS, Rochester Institute of Technology (November 2)
Digital Ethnography Working Group (with Emily Lim Rogers), Rutgers (zoom, November 3)
STS Speaker Series, University of Michigan (December 4)
2022
Everything is a Filter?, Models Lecture Series, ICI Berlin, November 28
Disability Histories of Technology: A Methods Roundtable, SHOT Presidential Panel, November 11
Keynote, Digital Histories Conference, Brown MCM, November 4
Music Now series, Brown University, October 3
What Was Access? Hidden Legacies of Helen Keller Symposium, APH, Louisville, Sept 17-18
One Must Live It: Day-Long Gathering in conversation with Lorenza Böttner, Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, July 23
Roundtable: How could media theory and STS underpin new historical ways of understanding the story of the computer? Siegen University, July 5
Book Presentation for Jonathan Sterne’s Diminished Faculties, Scuola Superiore Meridionale di Napoli, June 20
Sound and Technology, Consortium for History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, May 19 2022
Collaborative Public Workshop, Brown Cogut Institute for the Humanities, May 13-14
Music from Earth, Radcliffe Institute, May 9-10 2022
DWOSKINO, e-flux Screening Room, May 7
CCRMA Colloquium, Stanford, April 2022
Keynote (with Jonathan Sterne), Sonorities Festival, Belfast, April 2022
Horowitz Book Prize Symposium for Bess Williamson’s Accessible America, Bard Graduate Center, March 18
New Perspectives on Telephone Network Switching, Mercurians Brown Bag Talk, March 10
2021
Switchboard Automation and the Disability History of 0s and 1s, Performing Arts Department Colloquium, Washington University St. Louis, November 12
Ways Forward: New Institutional Paradigms and Practices, Wexner Center for the Arts, August 5
Keynote: Assistance, Assistants, and Assistive Media Conference, Leuphana (online), July 1-3
Prototyping AI ethics futures: Rights, access and refusal, Ada Lovelace Institute / The British Academy, June 23
Keynote, Spoken Web Symposium, May 19-21
Methods and Critical Issues Training, Histories of AI Mellon Sawyer Seminar, April 28
Overload: Switchboard Automation and the Social History of 0s and 1s, Harvard History of Science Colloquium, April 22
Overload: Telephone Operators and Digital Labor c. 1913, Michigan ESC, April 2
Activism and the Humanities, NYU Center for the Humanities, March 17
Osiris Special Issue on Science and Disability, The Center for Black, Brown, and Queer Studies, March 17
Disability & Tech: Barriers and Opportunities, SXSW, March 16
Panelist, TechCrunch Sessions: Justice 2021, March 3
Joint Book Party: Hearing Happiness and Testing Hearing, NYU CDS, February 12
2020
Keynote: “‘Everything’s a Filter?’ A Social History of the Electrical Filter,” Sound Instruments and Sonic Cultures, National Science and Media Museum (Bradford, UK, December 15-16)
Rethinking the “Standard” in Digital Standards, Centre for Digital Cultures, Leuphana Universität (online, December 7)
Innovative City Forum, Mori Art Museum (Tokyo, online, November 23)
Conversation with Alison O’Daniel about The Tuba Thieves (installation), The Gallatin Galleries (online, October 21)
Testing Hearing With Speech, Psy-ences Conference, Université du Québec (online, September 25)
Keynote: Telepoetics Symposium, Science Museum Dana Research Centre, London, May 27 [ONLINE EVENT]
Testing Hearing With Speech, Consortium for History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, May 15 [ONLINE MEETING]
Methods in Sound Studies, Dartmouth Masters Program in Digital Musics, May 14 [ONLINE WORKSHOP]
The Choreography of Rehabilitation: Disability and Race in Balanchine’s Agon, Paramodernities Live, May 9 [ONLINE EVENT]
Keynote (with Jonathan Sterne), Sonorities Festival Belfast, April 22-25 [POSTPONED]
Talking Books and the History of Aural Speed Reading, Mount Holyoke LITS Speaker Series, April 16 [POSTPONED due to COVID-19]
Edison and Deafness, One Book, One Town – West Orange Reads Edison, Thomas Edison National Historical Park (New Jersey), March 8
Talking Books and the History of Aural Speed Reading, UnCommon Salons, Bobst Library, February 27
(with Amy Hurst) Technology and Disability, Launch of the NYU Alliance for Public Interest Technology, February 6
2019
Testing Hearing With Speech, Smart Hearing workshop, University of Konstanz, November 22-23
Clandestine Talk: Paradigm, Lara Favaretto’s Thinking Head, Venice Biennale, October 26-27
Disability Memoir, Part 2 (with Rebecca Sanchez), NYU CDS lunchtime seminar, October 11
Artist Talk: Paramodernities #6 (with Netta Yerushalmy, Georgina Kleege, and Christina Crosby), Wesleyan University Center for the Arts, September 26
Perspectives on Sound, Science, and Technology, Max Planck Research Group (Acoustics), Berlin, June 18
Science Media Network: Critical Collaborations Between Media Studies and History of Science, A Preliminary Workshop, Bauhaus University Weimar, June 11-12
Dis/ability and the City Workshop, Humboldt Uni (Berlin), May 28-29
Discussion with Emanuel Almborg, dir. Talking Hands, Colloquium for Unpopular Culture, April 22
New Methods for Histories of Aural Reading, Sensorium of Reading series, Johns Hopkins University, April 16
Keynote, Sonologia Conference, Sao Paulo, April 9-12
Touch This Page: A Symposium on Ability, Access, and the Archive, Northeastern University/Harvard University, April 4-5
(with Sara Hendren) Framing Talk: Workshop on Disability, Bias, and AI, AI NOW Institute, March 28
Paramodernities 6: The Choreography of Rehabilitation: Disability and Race in Balanchine’s Agon, New York Live Arts, March 14-17
Testing Hearing With Speech, Columbia Society of Fellows, March 7
Universidad Diversa: Inclusión de personas con discapacidad en instituciones de educación superior, UNAM, February 15
Paramodernities 6: The Choreography of Rehabilitation: Disability and Race in Balanchine’s Agon, Wexner Center for the Arts, February 7-8
2018
Impairment, Political Concepts: The Science Edition, Brown University, December 7-8
A Field Guide to Interference, Der Ohrenmensch, House of World Cultures (Berlin), November 2
Opening Plenary, “Kranzberg’s Laws at 60,” SHOT Annual Meeting, October 11
Making Images Accessible, Investigating Normal Seminar, SUNY Purchase, September 17
Words Per Minute: Speed Listening in the 1970s, Sensing the Sonic: Histories of Hearing Differently, University of Cambridge, June 15-16
Keynote: Testing Hearing With Speech, The Audible Spectrum Conference, Philharmonie de Paris, June 8
Roundtable: Sound Studies, The Emergence of a Field, The Audible Spectrum Conference, National Institute of Art History (Paris), June 7
Listening Techniques, Voice in the Machine Seminar, Bard College, February 27
2017
Epistemes of Modern Acoustics Winter Colloquium, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, December 12
Critique in Digital Cultures Lecture Series, Digital Cultures Research Lab, Leuphana University, November 15
Medien, die wir meinen and Klangdenken Colloquia, Humboldt Universität Department of Media Studies and MPIWG, November 8
Observation through Specialized Instruments, Observational Practices Lab, New School, November 3
Aurality, Listening, and Hearing: Histories (Abbate Seminar), Harvard University Department of Music, October 25
GSS Workshop, Princeton University, April 27
Digital Materialities Symposium, University of Southern California, April 14
Disability Studies: A History (Conference), University of Pennsylvania, March 30-31
Feminist Media Theory Seminar, Barnard College, March 29
Workshop in the History of Material Texts, University of Pennsylvania, January 23
2016
Ear Pieces: Listening, Diagnosing, Writing, University of Cambridge, December 16-17
Cybernetics and the Human Sciences, Remarque Institute, NYU, December 3
Chicago Humanities Festival, The Newberry Library, November 5
What is Comparative Media?, Columbia University, September 29-October 1
Knowledge Architectures: Mumbai, TISS Mumbai, July 3-6.
STS Seminar, Uppsala University, May 31
Techniques of Mediation, Geballe Research Workshop, Stanford Humanities Center, May 16
Listening in: A Sound Symposium, Johns Hopkins Center for Advanced Media Studies, May 6
Techniques of the Listener, Whitney Humanities Center, Yale University, April 7-8
Listening (to) Cyborgs: A Media Archaeology Workshop on Sound Technologies, University of Pennsylvania (Music and Art History), March 16
Hardwired Temporalities Symposium, McGill University, March 11-12
History of Science, Technology, and Medicine Colloquium, University of Minnesota, March 4
2015
Seminar in Ethnomusicology and Sound Studies, Oxford University, November 19
Workshop on Choosing Disability, Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, University of Pennsylvania, November 6-7
Media & Materialisms Lecture Series, Cornell University, September 16
On Impairment, ICI Berlin, June 11
Designing Things – Engineering the Senses, eikones NFS Bildkritik, Basel, June 4-5
Mimetic Mutations, Bauhaus Universität Weimar, May 21-22
Sonic Shadows: Voice, Technics, and the Human, New School, April 24-25
Department of Music Guest Lecture Series, Yale University, April 10
Experimental Humanities Sound Cluster, Bard College, April 3
Critical Disability Studies Working Group, Concordia University, March 2
Program Series: Translation-Machination, NYU MCC, February 27
Crip Theory Today Panel, Feminist Technologies Series, The New School, February 23
Communications Colloquium, Columbia University, February 16
Voice Studies Now Conference, UCLA, January 30-31
Speaker Series: “Limits of the Human in/for the Humanities: Disability, Animality, Archives,” Pomona College, January 29
Las tres eras de la imagen: actualidad y perspectiva en los Estudios Visuales, 17, Instituto de Estudios Críticos (Mexico City), January 15-17
2014
Internet Accessibility Panel, Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy, December 9
Acoustic Alphabets and Designs for the Optophone, 1913-1972, Sonic Boom Conference, Northwestern University, November 14-15
Text-to-Tone: History and Sounds of the Optophone, Sonic Arts Research Center, Queen’s University Belfast, October 24
Optophones and Musical Print, Digging Sound: Methods and Sites in Sound Archaeology, Goldsmiths Radical Media Forum, October 23
Modulation, Seeing, Sounding, Sensing Symposium, MIT Center for Art, Science, and Technology (CAST), September 26-27
“A Pen that Reads”: Blind Aids as Assistive Pretexts, Rethinking Patent Cultures: Disability and Prostheses, University of Leeds and Leeds City Museum, September 18-19
Blindness and the History of Optical Character Recognition (OCR), Drexel University Department of History and Politics Colloquium, May 20
Sing, Yell, Tell: A Panel on Voice, New Museum, April 3, 2014
Exhibiting Disability: Perspectives and Practice, Guggenheim Museum, March 26, 2014
Surface-Interface Panel, Museum of Arts and Design, March 1, 2014
Earless Hearing, Sawyer Seminar on Hearing Modernity, Harvard University Department of Music, February 24, 2014
2013
Reading Bechdel with the Womyn’s Braille Press, Queer Method, University of Pennsylvania, October 31-November 1
Disability Studies Talks Back to Science and Technology Studies, SHOT Opening Plenary, Portland (Maine), October 10
What Does Sound Studies Teach Us About Technics?, 4S Presidential Plenary, San Diego, October 9
Text-to-Speech: Early Experiments, Resonant Bodies: Landscapes of Acoustic Tension, ICI Berlin, June 13-15
Keynote, Listen Up! Gender & Ability, Technology and Sound Conference, The University of Oregon, May 31-June 2
Reading By Ear: Musical Print and Recorded Literature (1930-1950), Music and Sound Studies Colloquium, University of Minnesota, March 29
Deaf Across the Curriculum Mellon AALAC Collaborative Workshop, Swarthmore College, March 1-3
Testing Vision with Print, Limits of the Visual in Arts and Sciences, ZfL Berlin, February 21-23
Talking Book Archives in the U.S. and the Question of “Prescription Media,” Auditory Memory and Sound Archives Workshop, University of Amsterdam, February 18
The Co-Construction of Blindness and Reading, The Future of Disability Studies, Columbia University, February 1
2012
Electro-otiatrics: From Medical Electricity to the Brain-Machine Interface, Deaf World/Hearing World Conference, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, December 10-11
Engineering Rhythm in the Bell Telephone System: On Automation and Its Impairments, Rhythmanalysis Symposium, Akademie Schloss Solitude, November 22-23
Print Disability and the Emergence of Audio Book Formats, STeMS Colloquium Series, University of Michigan, October 22
The Co-construction of Blindness and Reading, What is Kulturtechnik? Workshop, Institute for Cultural Studies, Humboldt University, June 8
Musical Print, Sonic Theory Oscillation Series @ General Public (Berlin), June 7
Vocal Codes: Lip-Reading and Early Signal Processing in the Telephone System, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, June 6
Print Disability, Reading Machines, and the History of OCR, Department of History, University of South Carolina, April 6
Reading Machines: Print Access and Media Change, University Seminar on the Theory and History of Media, Columbia University, March 26
Roundtable Participant, Disability and Pedagogy, CUNY Graduate Center English Student Association Conference, March 22
2011
Cochlear Implants After 50 Years: A History and an Interview with Charles Graser, “When the Subject Speaks” Workshop, Wesleyan University Center for the Humanities, December 9
AT&T and the Artificial Larynx, 1920-1960, International Study Group for the History of Otorhinolaryngology, New York Academy of Medicine, October 28
The Logic of Access: Reading Machines and the History of the Electronic Book, Department of Art History and Communication, McGill University, October 13
From Alphabet Gloves to Data Gloves, Centre for Sensory Studies, Concordia University, October 12
The Audiovisual Telephone: A History, Workshop on the Aesthetic Transfer of Music Video in the Context of Handhelds, MuViKon 11, Universität des Saarlandes, October 7
Electrifying the Book: Reading Machines and Print Disability, 1912-1980, Frontiers of New Media Symposium, University of Utah, September 16-17
The Technical Politics of Cochlear Implants, Department of Communication, University of California, San Diego, May 18
From Alphabet Gloves to Data Gloves, Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute Colloquium, April 28
Tactile Speech and the History of Cybernetics, Workshop: La Machine et la Parole, CNRS, Université Paris Diderot, April 8
Deafening: The History of Noise and Impairment in the Telephone System, STS Colloquium, University of California at Davis, March 8
Hearing Aids and the Long History of Electronics Miniaturization, Stanford Seminar on Science, Technology, and Society, March 7
2010
Do Signals Have Politics? Inscribing Abilities in Cochlear Implants, STS Working Group, National Tsing Hua University, December 22
Deafening: Hearing Loss, Urban Din, and Electronic Noise, Neil Postman Graduate Conference, New York University, October 22
Voice Studies Workshop, University of California Humanities Research Institute, September 17-18
Do Signals Have Politics? Inscribing Abilities in Cochlear Implants, National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of History, May 18
On Disability and Cybernetics: The Case of the Hearing Glove, Philadelphia Cinema and Media Seminar, April 23
Hearing Aids and the History of Electronics Miniaturization, New Voices, New Topics: Workshop in the History of Computing and Information, University of Texas at Austin, April 2-3
Media and Prosthesis: The Case of the Artificial Larynx and the Vocoder, Temple University Humanities Center, March 30
On Disability and Cybernetics: Helen Keller, Norbert Wiener and the Hearing Glove, VoxTAP Working Group, University of California at Berkeley, March 16
Cut-ups for Squares: Audio Tape and Speech Compression, 1945-1960, Taping the World: The Global Legacy of a Neglected Technology Lecture Series, University of Iowa, March 2
Voice Prints: From Inscription to Information, Workshop in the History of Material Texts, University of Pennsylvania, January 13
Telephone Operator, Camera-Operator: Laryngoscopy and High Speed Motion Pictures at Bell Labs, Philadelphia Medical Film Symposium, January 20-23