The UBC School of Journalism, Writing, and Media’s Scholarly Diversions Speaker Series is thrilled to celebrate the publication of Dr. Alexis McGee‘s book From Blues to Beyoncé: A Century of Black Women’s Generational Sonic Rhetorics with a talk titled “Gossip: A Sonic Technology of Black Women’s Rhetoric” next Friday, February 9th at 3:00 pm, in Buchanan Tower 241.
This event is hybrid: if you are unable to join us in-person, please register here for Zoom access.
“Gossip, A Sonic Technology of Black Women’s Rhetoric”
Gossip has often been categorized as a disruptive, gendered phenomenon. However, this viewpoint often diminishes the productive “soundwork” that gossip affords women of color, specifically Black women and girls. As such, this article aims to complicate discussions of gossip through an intersectional, sonic, and rhetorical framework. I argue that the audibility of advice found within gossip can be a generative rhetoric for survival and resistance, especially within workplace environments like academia. By examining gossip’s sociohistorical functions and processes, we can better understand how this sonic approach to communicating, listening, and storytelling push against methods of surveillance, especially methods grounded in antiBlackness, as gossip cultivates moments of rhetorical agency.
