Cornell EGSO Conference 2025: Sound—Systems

Deadline for Submissions: January 15th

Conference: March 14-15, 2025

Call for Academic and Creative Proposals

“I sat there thinking of my children, when I heard a low strain of music. A band of serenaders were under the window playing “Home, sweet home.” I listened till the sounds did not seem like music, but like the moaning of children. It seemed as if my heart would burst. I rose from my sitting posture, and knelt. A streak of moonlight was on the floor before me, and in the midst of it appeared the forms of my two children. They vanished; but I had seen them distinctly. Some will call it a dream, others a vision.”

—Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

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As Jacobs evocatively suggests, sound can be visionary and transformative, working within or momentarily rupturing systems of oppression. Sound as chant, as song, as thrum of collective voices or notes joined in unison can amplify expression, stage protest, or be the threshold to a supernatural state of consciousness. Additionally, sound may be characterized as unpleasant or frightening, preventing communication or hindering the transmission of voice or clear language. Whether cacophony or harmony, discord or communion, sound can distract, focus, or resonate. Sonic systems can engage multiple senses; vibrations are felt throughout and across bodies, and the graininess of static contains a visual and kinesthetic quality. White noise may blur or sharpen perception, or serve as a background quality. But sound is also rarely static or calcified: it changes, vibrates, fills spaces, circulates as soundwave, screen, projection, print. Sound can create its own systems, or function within them; systems can organize, constrain, or channel sound. A school bell can organize bodies and time in hierarchy and harmony, and a megaphone can bring people together in a heterogeneous mass. Different sounds can reinforce social and political systems, or rupture them in equal measure.

Cornell’s campus has recently been filled with sound—sometimes characterized as intimidating, highly disruptive, or even menacing. When sound is forced to become silence, what noise breaks through? How does sound function in social and political systems, and what systems can be formed of sounds?

This year, the English Graduate Student Organization (EGSO) seeks papers and creative works that explore the multitudinous expressions and valences of sound — systems. We invite submissions of original research papers from a range of disciplines, including but not limited to: Literary Studies, Performance and Media Studies, Indigenous Studies, Film and Visual Studies, Sound Studies, Cultural Studies, Queer and Gender Studies, Affect Studies, Disability Studies, Art History, Medieval Studies, Political Science, Conflict and Peace Studies, Ecocriticism and Environmental Studies, Postcoloniality/Decoloniality, Creative Nonfiction, Music and Musicology, Musical Pieces, Poetry, and Short Form Fiction. We seek to feature conference papers, readings, performances, and exhibits of creative works, and works-in-progress that engage questions related to sound—systems.

We are especially interested in papers engaging with the following topics:

• Protest, interruption, and/or disruption
• Sound and space
• Sound and music
• Racialized or gendered qualities of sound
• Pauses, silences, valences
• Sound as visual or vibration
• Sound as methodology
• The classifications of sounds as harmonious or distracting

Presentations of any type should not exceed 15 minutes.

As this conference is sponsored by Cornell’s English Graduate Student Organization, we encourage participation from graduate students in English and adjacent fields including, but not limited to, Comparative Literature, Romance Studies, Performing and Media Arts, History, Social Sciences, and Philosophy. We will consider any submissions from graduate students in any discipline focused on the conference theme. Please note that we do not consider submissions from postdocs, early career, or independent scholars.

For academic papers, please submit a 250-300 word abstract. For creative works, please submit both (1) a 250 word synopsis/rationale of the work and (2) a 300-500 word (or multi-image) excerpt from the work (no more than three pages in length).

Please include your institutional affiliation and a short biography (50-100 words) with your submission. All submissions and inquiries should be sent as a .docx or .pdf file to CornellEGSOConference@gmail.com by January 15, 2025.

Note: The deadline has now been extended until January 29, 2025.