Institutes

SpokenWeb Futures: New Projects: Collections, Methods, Collaborations

Introduction: These meetings are designed for returning and new partners to share knowledge and formulate projects for planning of a new phase of the SpokenWeb research network. Our overarching goal is to share information and ideas about collections and projects, with an emphasis on archives, methods, knowledge mobilization, and collaboration, and to have fun doing so along the way. Presentations of 10-15 minutes will be conversational, informational, speculative, and “brainstormy” in nature, with an emphasis on 1) what: showing and telling about collections of AV objects, or potential areas of research activity, 2) how: thinking about methods, processes, and ways to approach the objects or activities, 3) why: why are we doing this, what are the things we hope will emerge from the what and how, what do we want to make, or make happen (and why), and 4) collaboration: how might our imagined activities and goals involve others and overlap with other imagined activities and goals. Each panel of 3-4 papers will be followed by discussion, questions, and more discussion.

Hotel: Chateau Versailles Montréal (for some participants)

1659 Sherbrooke St W, Montreal, Quebec H3H 1E3, Canada ( +1 514-933-3611)

Meeting Locations: This gathering will be held in the J.W. McConnel Library Building (LB)

1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, H3G 1M8. All sessions will be held in room LB-322 within the Concordia Library. You must either take the stairs or elevator furthest to the left from the mezzanine of LB to the 2^nd floor, and then take the stairs or another elevator within the library to get to the 3^rd floor of LB. An additional large seminar room, LB-362 has been reserved for our use should you need somewhere escape to for a quiet spell, or some emailing, during the day.

Resources:

• Information about the SSHRC Partnership Grant Programme
• SW Main Website
• SpokenWeb Futures – Working Document (v1) (May 2023 – July 2024)
• SW Community Task Force Mission Document DRAFT 1 (2020)
• SW Metadata Scheme and Cataloguing Process
• Swallow Metadatabase (GitHub)
• SpokenWeb Search Engine
• SW Oral Literary History Protocol
• SW Podcast Series

Virtual Participation:

DAY 1 –  Zoom Link: https://concordia-ca.zoom.us/j/84809666636

DAY 2  – Zoom Link: https://concordia-ca.zoom.us/j/81918596988

THE SPOKENWEB SOUND INSTITUTE (SSI) 2024

The SpokenWeb Research Network is pleased to invite you to attend our next in-person gathering to be held in Calgary, June 5-7, 2024. Join us for “Sounding the Futures: Listening Across Time and Space,” a Symposium and Sound Institute that brings together academics, archivists, librarians, artists, and members of diverse communities interested in literature and sound to exchange ideas, methods, art, and knowledge about modes of engaging with the sonic dimensions of literary practice. This year we will be “sounding out the futures,” with panels, workshops, and guest speakers asking how we engage with questions of futurity across—tethered to, or in resistance of—times and spaces.

Click HERE to view the CFP.

As a part of the 2024 SpokenWeb Symposium & Sound Institute, attendees are invited to take part in a series of workshops on June 7th at the University of Calgary. SpokenWeb Network members and interested future collaborators are invited to also participate in the SpokenWeb Futures Team Meeting. Check out the exciting schedule and Institute details below.

REGISTRATION

Registration is now open for the SpokenWeb 2024 Symposium and Sound Institute! Register here: https://eur.cvent.me/NWz9R.

Schedule

Friday June 7, 2024: SpokenWeb Sound Institute

9:00-10:30      Workshop 1: Annotating Across Time and Space, presented by Tanya Clement, Trent Wintermeier, and Luke Sumpter. Room: Collision Space.

10:00-11:00    Coffee & Snacks available during Break

10:30-12:00    Workshop 2: Deeper Listening: Reimagining Restorative Justice in the Arts, presented by Cassondra Murray. Room: Collision Space.

10:30-12:00    Workshop 3: Exploring Spatial Music Mixing Through Virtual Reality, presented by Théo Bouveyron. Room: Breakout Space.

12:00-1:00      Lunch (provided)

1:00-2:30        Workshop 4: Electronic Literature + Live Coding Jam/Workshop, presented by Jessica Rodriguez. Room: Collision Space.

1:00-2:30        Workshop 5: Alchemical Transformations of Alluvial Deposits, presented by Kerry Priest, Sarah Blissett, Lucinda Guy, Alice Armstrong, and Nuria Bonet. Room: Breakout Space.

2:00-3:00    Coffee & Snacks available during Break

2:30-4:00        SpokenWeb Podcast Listening Party. Room: Collision Space.

4:00-5:30        Sounding Out the Future: SpokenWeb Team Meeting. Room: Collision Space.

6:00-8:00        Dinner (on your own)

Event Details

The 2024 SpokenWeb Symposium and Sound Institute will take place at the Hunter Hub for Entrepreneurial Thinking, University of Calgary, 460 Campus Lane NW, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4.

For on-site accommodation booking, please email spokenweb2024@gmail.com to receive the booking link and event exclusive code. Accommodation is also available in nearby University District and Motel Village (Banff Trail).

A transit link is available to and from the Calgary International Airport. This service is provided by Route 300 from the Calgary International Airport to downtown. Catch the bus from the airport at Bay 7 (located across Arrivals Door 2) or Bay 32 (located across Arrivals Door 15) from the airport.

A full list of maps and transit routes for the city are available here: https://www.calgarytransit.com/content/transit/en/home/rider-information/lrt-and-bus-station-maps.html.

Around Calgary

Calgary has a significant number of parks and walking trails, making it possible for a nice stroll, bike ride, or run virtually anywhere in the city. To see a full list of parks, check out the city park map: https://www.calgary.ca/categories/subcategory-parks-grid.html.

Some key parks and paths include: Nose Hill Park (the largest natural space in the city, which includes off-leash areas, trails, and the Nose Hill Medicine Wheel); the Bow River Pathway (48 km of paved pathway along the Bow and Elbow rivers); Confederation Park (great for a picnic in Kensington); and Fish Creek Park.

Alberta’s National Parks include mountain destinations such as Banff, Canmore, Lake Louise, and Jasper. There are various ways to get to and explore the Rocky Mountains (also known as the Rockies) without a car. One of the most inexpensive travel options is On-It Transit, which offers $10 one-way commuting options to Banff and Canmore.

Calgary is home to a number of festivals (large and small) throughout the year, including Globalfest, Taste of Calgary, the Calgary International Film Festival, Calgary Pride, Sled Island, the Calgary Folk Music Festival, and more! https://www.visitcalgary.com/things-to-do/stories-from-calgary/festivals-in-calgary.

The Calgary Public Library has an extensive collection of physical and digital materials. The Central Library was included in Time Magazine’s List of the World’s 100 Greatest Places of 2019, https://calgarylibrary.ca/.

Local Bookstores: Calgary is home to a number of independent bookstores, including: Pages on Kensington, Shelf Life Books, and The Next Page.

Some museums and heritage sites in and around Calgary include: the Glenbow Museum, Heritage Park, Lougheed House, Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump Site, Blackfoot Crossing, and Ootssapi’tomowa (Look Out Hill).

THE SPOKENWEB SOUND INSTITUTE (SSI) 2023

Following the SpokenWeb 2023 Symposium, SpokenWeb Network members are invited to take part in the SpokenWeb 2023 Institute, a two-day series of workshops and training activities designed in collaboration with the University of Alberta’s Sound Studies Institute.

THE SPOKENWEB SOUND INSTITUTE (SSI) 2022

The SpokenWeb Sound Institute (SSI) will be back in person this year! It will take place at Concordia University in Montreal, 18-20 May 2022. Participation in SSI workshops and events is open to all members of the SpokenWeb network who are able to attend.  Select workshops may be provided in a hybrid format for those who cannot join in person.

As with all of our planned Institutes, this year’s SSI will provide opportunities to reflect on the past year, solidify the work of each of the SpokenWeb Task Forces, share tools and knowledge, and plan the year ahead. For SpokenWeb members who are not yet affiliated with any Task Force, this will also be a great opportunity to see how you might like to get involved in collaborative projects during the 2021-2022 academic year.

The SpokenWeb Sound Institute (SSI) 2021

Due to restrictions surrounding in-person meetings due to COVID-19, this year’s SpokenWeb Sound Institute (SSI) will be comprised of a series of asynchronously delivered, online events during the months of May, June and July 2021, hosted virtually from Concordia University in Montreal. Participation in SSI workshops and events is open to all members of the SpokenWeb network.

As with all of our planned Institutes, this year’s SSI will provide opportunities to reflect on the past year, solidify the work of each of the SpokenWeb Task Forces, share tools and knowledge, and plan the year ahead. For SpokenWeb members who are not yet affiliated with any Task Force, this will also be a great opportunity to see how you might like to get involved in collaborative projects during the 2021-2022 academic year.

Full SpokenWeb Sound Institute (SSI) 2021 Program

• Wednesday, May 26, 1:30-3 pm EDT: Workshop #1 on Oral History Workshop with Deanna Fong and Mathieu Aubin
• Thursday, June 3, 2-4 pm EDT: Workshop #2 on an Introduction to IIIF with Peter Binkley
• Thursday, June 17, 2-4 pm EDT: Workshop #3 on AudiAnnotate in the Classroom with Tanya Clement
• Tuesday, June 29, 1-3pm EDT: Workshop #4 on Scholarly Podcasting with Hannah McGregor, Judith Burr, and Stacey Copeland
• Monday, July 26, 7-8pm EDT: Workshop #5 on Podcasting Transcription
• Tuesday, July 27, 3pm EDT: Workshop #6 on Rights Management with a SpokenWeb Task Force
• Wednesday, July 28, 1-3pm EDT: Workshop #7 on Audio Cleanup with SoX
• Thursday, July 29, 2-4pm EDT: Workshop #8 on Research Showcase and Workshop
• Thursday, August 12, 2-4pm EDT: Workshop #9 Community Task Force Documentation Draft Discussion

Workshop #1: Provenance and Informational Interviews

Offered by: Deanna Fong and Mathieu Aubin
Date and Time: Wednesday, May 26, 2021, at 1:30-3pm EDT

Workshop Description: This workshop led by Deanna Fong and Mathieu Aubin will introduce participants to SpokenWeb’s Oral Literary History protocol, with special emphasis on conducting provenance and informational interviews. Provenance interviews gather contextualizing information about a collection, either at the moment of its acquisition, or shortly afterwards. Informational interviews gather information about a recording or collection of recordings, and/or the events they document. The workshop is intended to provide foundational information for any students, faculty, or professionals within the SpokenWeb network who wish to conduct interviews about their collections. We will also engage in a more general discussion of Oral Literary History and its ethics, methods, and outcomes. All levels of experience are welcome to attend.

Workshop #2: An Introduction to IIIF

Offered by: Peter Binkley
Date and Time: Thursday, June 3, 2021, at 2-4 pm EDT

Venue: Zoom Link Here

Workshop Description: This session will introduce the principal components of the IIIF suite of APIs, with examples of their use in online services. The topics covered will be:

1. The Image API: deep-zoomable images
2. The Presentation API: complex multipage objects with metadata
3. Annotations: published or user-generated
4. Reuse of IIIF services: I is for Interoperability
5. Other Formats: incorporating A/V and 3D resources

Participants should come away with a general understanding of what benefits IIIF can bring to a research publication, and what options exist for producing and sustaining a IIIF-based web resource.

Workshop #3: AudiAnnotate in the Classroom

How to Teach Annotation with Difficult Collections

Date and Time: Thursday, June 17, 2021, at 2 – 4 pm EDT
Offered by: Tanya Clement (University of Texas)

Venue: Zoom Link Here

Workshop Description: This workshop introduces a lesson plan around a publicly-accessible 1964 recording of a Civil Rights activism event in the John and Barbara Beecher Collection at the Harry Ransom Center. While this recording highlights the voices of community activists, it also includes racist slurs, descriptions of imprisonment of Black highschoolers, and testimonies from concerned parents. The presenters consider how to empathetically present this audio without replicating oppression, practicing trauma-informed pedagogy.

Workshop #4: Scholarly Podcasting

From Pitch to Production

Date and Time: Tuesday June 29, 2021, at 1 – 3 pm EDT
Offered by: Hannah McGregor and Judith Burr

Venue: Zoom Link Here 

Workshop Description:In this workshop, SpokenWeb Podcast host and Amplify Podcast Network co-director Hannah McGregor, SpokenWeb supervising producer Judith Burr, and Amplify supervising producer Stacey Copeland will introduce participants to the process of developing and pitching a podcast idea, and then turning that idea into reality. The first half of the workshop will focus broadly on the skills involved in developing a scholarly podcast, and will be open to all practicing or aspiring scholarly podcasters. The second half of the workshop will be a focused pitch workshop, in which participants will start to develop their pitches for SpokenWeb Podcast episodes. All skill levels welcome!

Workshop #5: Podcasting Transcription in SpokenWeb and Beyond

Date and Time: Monday, July 26 2021, at 7 – 8 pm EDT

Venue: Zoom Link Here 

Workshop Description: Are you interested in the collaboration and decision-making that goes into academic podcast transcriptions? Are you looking for guidance on transcription best practices, style guides, and technology? Across the SpokenWeb community, we have a wealth of knowledge and experience working through transcriptions that we’re excited to share. Then we can build upon this knowledge together.

Join us on July 26th at 4 PM PT/7 PM ET for an hour-long transcription workshop to learn what your fellow audio scholars and podcasting production team members are working on, and connect to others in your field.

Participate in our ever-evolving understanding of:

• The ethical and accessibility responsibilities of transcriptions
• Academic use-cases for transcriptions
• Challenges and surprises the SpokenWeb community has encountered while doing transcription work

We’re an academic podcasting community but we’d love to learn from those doing transcription work in other capacities! All are welcome to register.

Structure:

• Short presentation on key transcription processes and considerations
• Discussion between transcribers Megan Butchart (UBCO) and Kelly Cubbon (SFU)
  • Key learnings, current questions, common challenges

• Listening exercise: how would you transcribe this?
• Q&A feeding into broader group discussion

Please bring your transcription questions!

Workshop #6: Rights Management Task Force Case Studies

Date and Time: Tuesday, July 27 2021, 3 pm EDT
Offered by: SpokenWeb Rights Management Task Force

Venue: Zoom Link Here 

Workshop Description: SpokenWeb’s Rights Management Task Force responds to case studies of collections held from across the SpokenWeb network. The Task Force will discuss how we can make the digitized audiovisual materials being processed in our collections openly available to the public, whether that is legally possible and/or ethically advisable, and what we would need to do in order to satisfy our legal and ethical standards before opening these materials up for public access.

Workshop #7: Audio Cleanup with SoX

Date and Time: Wednesday, July 28 2021, at 1 – 3 pm EDT
Offered by: Chelsea Miya, Sean Luyk, and Geoffrey Rockwell

Please Register here. 

Venue: Zoom Link Here 

Workshop Description: This workshop will teach participants how to clean up audio collections, using the Sound eXchange (SoX) command line tool. Known as the “swiss army knife of sound processing programs,” you can use SoX to analyze and edit audio files with simple text-based commands. We’ll start by getting comfortable with the command line environment, showing you how to navigate directories, create files, and load programs. Then, we will run through some basic SoX commands, including how to:

• Play audio files
• View metadata
• Trim silence
• Adjust volume
• Filter noise
• Visualize sound with a spectogram
• Combine effects
• Batch process multiple files

We will work with real audio files from the SpokenWeb archives, using examples of problems that you are likely to encounter when digitizing analog collections. You will also have a chance to test out what you have learned on your own files.

Workshop #8: Research Showcase and Workshop

Date and Time: Thursday, July 29 2021, at 2 – 5 pm EDT
Offered by: SpokenWeb members, students, and affiliates

Venue: Zoom Link Here

Workshop Description: Presenters will have the opportunity to present research, art, or other Spoken Web related activities in a low-stakes way and benefit from supportive audience feedback and discussion. We are open to a variety of formats, including conference-style presentation, workshop ideas, syllabi or lessons, research, critical writing, or creative output. Topic is open.  Presenters will submit their work in the form of video, audio, or text.

The format will be a variation on the traditional lightning talk. Audience members will have access to the submissions for 2 weeks prior to the event. Prior to the event the audience members will have read, watched, or listened to the presentations. At the event itself there will be no presentations, rather the time will be spent on question and discussion period.

The goal is to provide SpokenWeb members with an opportunity to put their work out to the greater network in order to receive feedback or facilitate discussion in a safe and supportive environment.

Workshop #9: Community Task Force Documentation Draft Discussion

Date and Time: Thursday, August 12 2021, at 2 – 5 pm EDT
Offered by: SpokenWeb members, students, and affiliates

For all workshop events, we respectfully acknowledge that Concordia University is located on unceded Indigenous lands, with the Kanien’kehá:ka Nation recognized as the custodians of the lands and waters. Tiohtià:ke/Montréal is historically known as a gathering place for many First Nations. We respect the continued connections with the past, present and future in our ongoing relationships with Indigenous and other peoples within the Montreal community.

The SpokenWeb Sound Institute (SSI) 2020

Due to restrictions surrounding in-person meetings due to COVID-19, this year’s SpokenWeb Sound Institute (SSI) will be comprised of a series of asynchronously delivered, online events during the months of May, June and July 2020, hosted virtually from Concordia University in Montreal. Participation in SSI workshops and events is open to all members of the SpokenWeb network.
As with all of our planned Institutes, this year’s SSI will provide opportunities to reflect on the past year, solidify the work of each of the SpokenWeb Task Forces, share tools and knowledge, and plan the year ahead. For SpokenWeb members who are not yet affiliated with any Task Force, this will also be a great opportunity to see how you might like to get involved in collaborative projects during the 2020-2021 academic year.
This summer’s SSI program includes practice-based training in workshops with experts in Computational Approaches to working with spoken audio collections, Podcasting Production, Oral History Methods, and Data and Metadata Curation. Each workshop will consist of an intensive session with the introduction of key concepts and principles followed by focused activities. Workshop sessions will last between 2-3 hours, depending on the planned activities. In addition to these themed workshop sessions, the SSI includes a 3-hour workshop session of Student Lightning Talks where SpokenWeb students will present short talks on ideas, activities and research they have been pursuing and receive feedback and discussion from the wider network..

Full SpokenWeb Sound Institute (SSI) 2020 Program

• Thursday, May 28, 12-2 pm CST: Workshop #1 on AudAnnotate Virtual Workshop with Tanya Clement and Brumfield Labs
• Thursday, June 25, 1-3 pm EDT: Workshop #2 on Podcasting with Hannah MacGregor and Stacey Copeland
• Thursday, July 9, 2-3:30 pm EDT: Workshop #3 on Oral History methods with Steven High, Mathieu Aubin and Samuel Mercier
• Friday, July 17, 1-5 pm EDT: SpokenWeb All Team Meeting (with a focus on collections processing)
• Sunday, July 19, 8 pm EDT: SpokenWeb Words and Music Show (a variety show, all team members are invited to participate)
• Wednesday, July 22, 2-5 pm EDT: SpokenWeb Sound Institute Workshops Sessions: Student Lightning Talks
• Thursday, July 23, 4-7 pm EDT: SpokenWeb DH2020 Sessions

Workshop #1: AudiAnnotate Virtual Workshop

Offered by: Tanya Clement (U Texas at Austin) and Brumfield Labs
Date and Time: Thursday, May 28, 2020, at 12-2pm CST

Workshop Description and Agenda: This introductory workshop will include basic information about the AudiAnnotate project, about using IIIF and the IIIF specifications for AV, how we are using Audacity to annotate audio files, and how we are using static sites, Jekyll, and GitHub to manage editing and publishing IIIF manifests and annotations.

Workshop #2: Pitching Your Podcast Idea with The SpokenWeb Podcast

Date and Time: Thursday, June 25, at 1:00 – 3 pm EDT
Offered by: Hannah MacGregor and Stacey Copland (SFU)
Venue: Zoom link https://concordia-ca.zoom.us/j/132863636

Workshop Description: Excited about making a podcast episode, but don’t know where to start? Join SpokenWeb Podcast host Hannah McGregor and podcast project manager Stacey Copeland for a workshop on taking your podcast idea to the next level. We’ll introduce you to The SpokenWeb Podcast and then walk you through developing a podcast idea, from concept to pitch to execution. No prior podcasting experience necessary, but participants should come with some episode ideas germinating!

During this workshop, you will be working with your peers on one activity, where you will participate in different teams. Please refer to the attached excel sheet to see your assigned team. If you have any concerns with your team or would like to be re-assigned, please let us know in advance of the workshop. You can also find instructions for the workshop activity below, which we’ll also review during the workshop itself. The other attached document, the Pitch Template, will be help you complete this activity.

Activity instructions will be emailed to all registered participants in advance of the workshop meeting.  Please review the activity instructions and have the handout ready before you join the workshop.

Workshop #3: Oral History Methods and Oral Literary History

Date and Time: Thursday, July 9, 2-3:30 EDT
Offered by: Steven High, Mathieu Aubin and Samuel Mercier (Concordia U)
Venue: Zoom (link to be sent to the network via email)

Workshops Description: The first part of this workshop will introduce foundational concepts and methods from oral history.  The workshop will then proceed into the presentation of clips, case-studies and scenarios for all-group discussion with the goals of 1. collaboratively defining a SpokenWeb Oral History protocol for engaging in interviews around collections of literary sound recordings, and 2. advancing our understanding and definition of the idea of “oral literary history”.

SpokenWeb All Team Meeting: Reviewing and Refining Description and Processing of SpokenWeb Collections

Date and Time: Friday, July 17, 1-5 pm EDT
Offered by: An all SpokenWeb Team event

Description: This all team meeting will function as a collaborative collection processing summit discussion at which we will pursue focused discussion of the approaches we have been taking to describing and processing our diverse audio collections with the SpokenWeb metadata schema and Swallow, the metadata management system.  Discussion will focus on particular fields of description, including the Creator/Contributor field and the Contents field.  We will also receive a demonstration of methods that have been used to export metadata collected in Swallow for web design and presentation of audio collections.

SpokenWeb Words and Music Show

Date and Time: Sunday, July 19, 8 pm EDT
Venue: Zoom (link to be sent to the network via email)
Offered by: Ian Ferrier (host of Words and Music), and Jason Camlot for participation of all interested SpokenWeb team members

Description: For the past three months, Ian Ferrier, host for twenty years (and running) monthly Words and Music Show, and the 2019 SW Curator in Residence, has collaborated with Jason Camlot (Director of SpokenWeb) in running the online version of the Words and Music Show.  While Words and Music usually takes a vacation in the month of July, Ian has graciously agreed to run a special SpokenWeb edition of the Words and Music show, open to SW team members only.  Think of this as a virtual cabaret, variety show, open mic, and team party.  All members  are invited to sign up to deliver a set of 3-5 minutes that may be a poetry reading, musical performance, visual presentation, pet trick, or anything else you wish to share for the enjoyment of your friends and colleagues across the SpokenWeb network.  Please sign up to perform at the show (signup deadline is midnight 17 July 2020) using this SpokenWeb Words and Music Show Signup Sheet.

Workshop #4: SSI Workshop Sessions – Student Lightning Talks

Offered by: An all SpokenWeb Team event
Date and Time: 22 July 2020, 2pm-5pm EDT
Venue: Zoom (link to be sent to the network via email)

Workshop Description: These sessions of the SSI are designed for student researchers to present ideas, experiences, and research they have been pursuing for feedback and discussion from members of the wider SpokenWeb network. Each presenter will talk for a maximum of five minutes and show a maximum of three slides. Following each “lightning talk,” we will open things up to ten minutes of feedback and discussion by using the chat function of Zoom and by sharing organized spoken comments. Presentations will be loosely clustered into themes or areas of interest, but the main goal is to devote time for feedback following each individual presentation. We will schedule breaks periodically throughout the sessions to provide time for more casual exchanges across zoom (with or without breakout rooms) and/or time to step away from the screen for a few moments. Each set of sessions will be moderated by a student or faculty member whose role will be to keep time, to bring comments from the chat into the conversation, and to call on members of the network to share their ideas and questions with the presenter.

The list of scheduled presenters is as follows:

• Manami Izawa (Concordia U): Visual Translation—Designing a listening environment as a graphic designer at SpokenWeb
• Lauren St. Clair (UBCO): TBD
• Bindu Shankara Reddy and Manami Izawa (Concordia U): SpokenWeb Timeline Design as Circuitry: Collaborative design project by using analogue and digital electricity.
• Sadie Barker (Concordia U): Noise in Postcolonial Literature
• Andrew Roberge (Concordia U): Spoken Word (in the Words and Music archive?)
• Amy Thiessen (UBCO): Audio Digitization and Badgr
• Yasaman Lotfizadeh (UBCO): Concept to Completion Badgr
• Ahlam Bavi (UBCO): Digital Arts and Humanities Research
• Ali Barillaro (Concordia U): Practice to Paper: Listening to Horror Sounds
• Emma Telaro (Concordia U):  Fleabag as Confessionalism (OR Podcasting Margaret Atwood)
• Stacey Copeland (SFU): Queer Feminist Radio and Podcasting
• Klara du Plessis (Concordia U): Questions surrounding Deep Curation

AudiAnnotate Workshop

SpokenWeb DH2020 Sessions

Offered by: SpokenWeb DH2020 Conference Participants
Date and Time: Thursday 23 July 2020, 4pm-7pm EDT
Venue: https://concordia-ca.zoom.us/j/3772249115

Session 1 (4 pm-5 pm EDT)

Moderator: Michael O’Driscoll (U Alberta)

Title: Dynamic Systems for Humanities Audio Collections: The Theory and Rationale of Swallow (25 Minutes)

Presenters: Jason Camlot, Tomasz Neugebauer, Francisco Berrizbeitia (Concordia U)

This paper approaches a system that has been designed, and continues to be in development, for the aggregation of metadata surrounding collections of documentary literary sound recordings, as an object for theoretical and practical discussion of how information about diverse collections of time-based media should be managed, and what such schema and system development means for our engagement with the contents of such collections as artifacts of humanist inquiry.  Swallow (Swallow Metadata Management System 2019), the interoperable spoken-audio metadata ingest system project that is the boundary object for this talk, emerged out of the goals of the SpokenWeb SSHRC Partnership Grant research network to digitize, process, describe, and aggregate the metadata of a diverse range of sound collections documenting literary and cultural activity in Canada since the 1950s.  Our talk, collaboratively written and delivered by a literary scholar and critical theorist, a digital projects and systems development librarian, and a library developer / programmer, outlines 1) a theoretical rationale for the audiotext as a significant form of data in the humanities, 2) consequent modes of description deemed necessary to render such data useful for humanities scholars, and 3) a rationale for the development of a specific form of database system given the material and systems contexts that inform our national holdings of documentary literary sound recordings at the present time.

Title: Queering the Tape Recorder: Transforming Surveillance Technologies through bill bissett’s Queer Poetic Voice (10 Minutes)

Presenter: Mathieu Aubin (Concordia U)

This presentation reports on my preliminary analyses of a digitized collection of literary audio recordings featuring poetry readings by Canadian sound poet bill bissett. As Canadian literary communities adopted audio recording technologies as part of their cultural practices during the 1960s, bissett developed a unique relationship to the tape recorder. At the time, the RCMP used this technology to listen to queer people’s conversations, including those of bissett, document their activities, and regulate their sexuality in order to ensure the nation’s heterosexual status quo. In the poet’s tape recordings ranging from the 1960s-1980s, we hear bissett read poetry theorizing this queer surveillance, documenting his lived experiences as a gay man, and fighting for sexual liberation. We also hear sonic traces of the location and social dynamics of the recorded event and the technology used to capture this moment. Until recently, when SpokenWeb began digitizing and making them available to the wider public, these recordings were kept in private collections and had limited circulation. Following the recordings’ recent shift towards digital public circulation, this presentation considers how listening to bissett’s queer tape recordings in SpokenWeb’s digital archive amplifies his voice, forges queer ways of listening to literary audio, and fosters new public dialogue about Canada’s gay history.

Title: Stop Words (5 Minutes)

Presenter: Klara Du Plessis (Concordia U)

STOP WORDS is a set of five short poems based on five sets of commonly used stop words gleaned from topic modelling and computational literary studies: articles, pronouns, prepositions, conjugations of to be, and negation. The reading of each poem is recorded and each audio file is transformed using a variety of sound wave visualization softwares, resulting in five visual poems or images. These images function as interpretative graphical material, visualizing literature as simultaneously scientifically accurate, quantitative, and highly affective, qualitative, diagrams. At its broadest, Stop Words is also an intervention in the Humanities / Digital Humanities schismatic debate, digitally supplementing the traditional verbal dimension of poetry while celebrating an interpretative, subjective digitally generated product. Stop Words engages closely with Johanna Drucker’s research on qualitative statistical representation.

SHORT BREAK with optional breakout room conversation (5pm – 5:15pm EDT)

Session 2 (5:15 pm – 7 pm EDT)

Moderator and Timekeeper: Jason Camlot (Concordia U)

Title: Ethical Soundings in Collaborative Digital Humanities Research Projects: Critical Scenarios from The SpokenWeb

Presenters:

(1) Jason Camlot, Professor and Research Chair in Literature and Sound Studies, Concordia University;

(2) Tanya Clement, Associate Professor, Digital Humanities and English, University of Texas;

(3) Klara du Plessis, Doctoral Candidate, English, Concordia University;

(4) Liz Fisher, Doctoral Candidate, Digital Humanities and English, University of Texas;

(5) Deanna Fong, Postdoctoral Fellow in Literature and Oral History, Concordia University;

(6) Yuliya Kondratenko, SpokenWeb Project Manager, Concordia University;

(7) Emily Murphy, Assistant Professor, Digital Humanities, Department of English and Cultural Studies,

University of British Columbia, Okanagan;

(8) Annie Murray, Associate University Librarian for Archives and Special Collections, University of Calgary;

(9) Michael, O’Driscoll, Professor, English and Film Studies, Vice-Dean of Arts, University of Alberta;

(10) Karis Shearer, Associate Professor, English and Cultural Studies, University of British Columbia, Okanagan.

This panel draws upon recent and ongoing experiences from the interdisciplinary SpokenWeb <www.spokenweb.ca> research programme to consider the range of ethical scenarios that inform this collaborative network’s engagement with audio archives of literary and humanities-oriented sound recordings, and the communities of practice that generated them. We will consider ethical scenarios through specific projects of the SpokenWeb partnership, a research network that aims to develop coordinated and collaborative approaches to literary historical study, digital development, and critical and pedagogical engagement with diverse collections of literary sound recordings from across Canada and beyond. The goals and projects of the SpokenWeb partnership that will serve to focus our discussion of ethical scenarios in large-scale collaborative digital humanities networks include:

1. rights and access management of digital research data and metadata;
2. the ethics of archival listening as they pertain to the development of new forms of historical and critical scholarly methods of engagement with the contents of documentary audio archives;
3. automated techniques and tools for searching, visualizing, analyzing and enhancing critical engagement (for features relevant to humanities research and pedagogy);
4. pedagogy, training, mentorship and student labor (the organization of roles and relations across the research network);
5. innovative ways of mobilizing digitized spoken and literary recordings within performative and public contexts;
6. project management and governance.

For all workshop events, we respectfully acknowledge that Concordia University is located on unceded Indigenous lands, with the Kanien’kehá:ka Nation recognized as the custodians of the lands and waters. Tiohtià:ke/Montréal is historically known as a gathering place for many First Nations. We respect the continued connections with the past, present and future in our ongoing relationships with Indigenous and other peoples within the Montreal community.

The SpokenWeb Sound Institute 2019

The SpokenWeb Sound Institute is a two-day interactive event which will take place on the Burnaby campus of SFU, open to the members of the SpokenWeb network.

It is an opportunity to reflect on the past year, solidify the work of each of the SpokenWeb Task Forces, share tools and knowledge, and plan the year ahead.

For SpokenWeb members who are not yet affiliated with any Task Force, this will great opportunity to see how you might like get involved in 2019-2020.

The SpokenWeb Sound Institute is followed by the inaugural two-day SpokenWeb Symposium, Resonant Practices in Communities of Sound, which takes place at Harbour Centre and Woodwards in downtown Vancouver, May 30-31, 2019. Continue reading about the SpokenWeb Symposium here.

We respectfully acknowledge that SFU is on unceded Coast Salish Territory; the traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

We are grateful for the support of SFU’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Office of the Vice-President, Research, and the Department of English.

We also wish to thank members of the SFU organizing committee: Rebecca Dowson, Deanna Fong, Jakob Knudsen, Linara Kosolova, Michelle Levy, Cole Mash, Kim O’Donnell, Tony Power, Melissa Salrin. With thanks to Catherine Louie.