This episode of The SpokenWeb Podcast is a little different than episodes you’ve heard from us before. It is a kind of “feminist memory-work” – An audio collage, a method, an approach to community building which aims to honor lesbian-feminist collective histories and renewed public attention to lesbian feminist culture.
SpokenWeb network members Felicity Tayler and Mathieu Aubin originally guided a SpokenWeb listening practice session in which they led a discussion of diegetic and nondiegetic sounds in clips from three queer films: A Working Women’s Collective (1974), Labyris Rising (1980), and Scorpio Rising (1963). After the event, participants in the Listening Practice enthusiastically desired an expanded event where we would collectively watch, listen to, and discuss these films in their entirety. This led to the organization of a second event “Lesbian Liberation Across Media” sponsored by multiple institutions of queer cultural history and community, such as Labo de données en sciences humaines/The Humanities Data Lab, SpokenWeb, Lesbian and Gay Liberation in Canada Project, University of Toronto Media Commons Archives, and the ArQuives.
Episode producers – Felicity Tayler, Mathieu Aubin and Scott Girouard – cordially invite you into their feminist sonic memory world: A three-part audio collage of “Lesbian Liberation Across Media”. A virtual film screening and discussion held Summer 2020 in partnership with SpokenWeb, and featuring three iconic lesbian feminist films: “A Working Women’s Collective” (1974), “Labyris Rising” (1980), and “Proud Lives: Christine Bearchell”(2007). Through a weaving together of the voices of over 60 participants in attendance, along with original music scores, archival clips and more – we ask, how do we listen to Canadian lesbian liberation movements across media? Whether it’s a feature length film or a spirited virtual chat session, this audio collage episode invites you to experience a citational politics that makes audible the intergenerational relationships, conflicting concerns, nostalgic reveries, and a sense of togetherness while apart in the pandemic-related time of crisis.
[***Transcript in process***]
Hannah Mcgregor: What does literature sound like? What stories will we hear if we listen to the archive? Welcome to The SpokenWeb Podcast: Stories about how literature sounds.
My name is Hannah McGregor, and each month I’ll be bringing you different stories of Canadian literary history, and our contemporary responses to it, created by scholars, poets, students, and artists from across Canada.
This episode of The SpokenWeb Podcast is a little different than episodes you’ve heard from us before. What you are about to hear is a kind of “feminist memory-work” - An audio collage, a method, an approach to community building which aims to honor lesbian-feminist collective histories and renewed public attention to lesbian feminist culture.
In this episode, producers – Felicity Tayler, Mathieu Aubin and Scott Girouard - cordially invite you into their sonic memory world: A three-part audio collage of “Lesbian Liberation Across Media”. A virtual film screening and discussion held Summer 2020 in partnership with SpokenWeb, and featuring three iconic lesbian feminist films: “A Working Women’s Collective”, “Labyris Rising” and “Proud Lives: Christine Bearchell”. Through a weaving together of the voices of over 60 participants in attendance, along with original music scores, archival clips and more - we ask, how do we listen to Canadian lesbian liberation movements across media? Whether it’s a feature length film or a spirited virtual chat session, this audio collage episode invites you to experience a citational politics that makes audible the intergenerational relationships, conflicting concerns, nostalgic reveries, and a sense of togetherness while apart in the pandemic-related time of crisis.
Here is Felicity, Mathieu and Scott with “Lesbian Liberation Across Media: A Sonic Screening”.
00:02:27 [Music Interlude]
00:02:35 [Feature Audio for Episode 2 plays]
00:56:55 [Music Interlude]
Hannah Mcgregor: SpokenWeb is a monthly podcast produced by the SpokenWeb team as part of distributing the audio collected from (and created using) Canadian Literary archival recordings found at universities across Canada.
Our producers this month are SpokenWeb team members Mathieu Aubin of Concordia University and Felicity Tayler University of Ottawa, with guest collaborator Scott Girouard,
Emma Middleton: and additional voiceover by Emma Middleton
Hannah McGregor: Our podcast project manager is Stacey Copeland - and a warm welcome to new Podcast Research Assistant Judee Burr.
To find out more about Spokenweb visit: spokenweb.ca and subscribe to The Spokenweb Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you may listen. If you love us, let us know! Rate us and leave a comment on Apple Podcasts or say hi on our social media @SpokenWebCanada. From all of us at Spokenweb, be kind to yourself and one another out there. We will see you back here next month for another episode of the SpokenWeb Podcast, stories about how literature sounds.
Felicity Tayler, Mathieu Aubin & Scott Girouard
Felicity Tayler is the E-Research Librarian at University of Ottawa with a portfolio in Research Data Management and currently the PhD Interim Head, Research Services Arts & Special Collections uOttawa. She is an occasional visual artist and curator, and has published scholarly writing related to literary archives in anthologies, in Journal of Canadian Art History,Canadian Literature, and Mémoires du livre / Studies in Book Culture.
Mathieu Aubin is a scholar on print and performance cultures in Canada. He completed his PhD at UBC and is now an Horizon Postdoctoral Fellow at Concordia University where he holds a leadership position within the “Oral Literary History” research component of the SpokenWeb project. As part of this project, he is working towards recuperating queer people’s contributions to Canadian literary culture. His work on queerness, literary communities, and Vancouver has been published in the journal Canadian Literature.
Scott Girouard is a Front-End Developer based in Toronto, Canada with a lifelong background in music and creative practice.
Acknowledgements:
Episode Voiceover by Emma Middleton
Music/Score by Scott Girouard and Mathieu Aubin
Thanks to Stacey Copeland, Hannah McGreggor, Jason Camlot, Katherine McLeod, Constance Crompton, Michelle Schwartz, Rachel E Beattie, Raegan Swanson, May Ning, Jake Moore, Becki Ross, Amy Gotlieb, Rachel Epstein, Maureen FitzGerald, Marusya Bociurkiw, Baylee Woodley, Elspeth Brown, Stark (pseudonym) .
Humanities Data Lab at U Ottawa, SpokenWeb, Lesbian and Gay Liberation in Canada Project, University of Toronto Media Commons Archives, ArQuives , VTape, VIVO Archives
References:
- Anger, Kenneth, director. Scorpio Rising. Ruban VHS, 1964.
- Butler, Judith. Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’. Routledge, 1993.
- Godard, Baraba. Gynocritics: Feminist Approaches to Canadian and Quebec Women’s Writing. ECW P, 1987.
- Media Mothers, directors. A Working Women’s Collective. 1974.
- Moores, Margaret, director. Labyris Rising. V Tape, 1980.
- Navas, Eduardo. Remix Theory: The Aesthetics of Sampling. Ambra Verlag, 2014.
- Nicol, Nancy, director. Proud Lives: Chris Bearchell. V Tape, 2007.
- Ross, Becki. The House that Jill Built. U of Toronto P, 1995.
