Jennifer Lynn Stoever earned her Ph.D. in American Studies and Ethnicity from USC. Her dissertation, “The Contours of the Sonic Color-Line: Slavery, Segregation, and the Cultural Politics of Listening,” was a 2007 finalist for the American Studies Association Dissertation Prize. She serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Popular Music Studies, Sound Studies, and Social Text. Jennifer has published in Social Text, Social Identities, Sound Effects, American Quarterly, and Radical History Review, among others; her article “Fine-Tuning the Sonic Color-line: Radio and the Acousmatic Du Bois“ was recently published in Modernist Cultures and is the featured online article of the issue. During 2011-2012, she was a fellow at The Society for the Humanities at Cornell University, participating in the Sound: Culture, Theory, Politics research group. Currently Associate Professor at SUNY Binghamton, Jennifer teaches courses on African American literature, sound studies, and race and gender representation in popular music. She also is the project coordinator for the Binghamton Historical Soundwalk Project, a multi-year archival and civically engaged art project designed to challenge how Binghamton students and year-round residents hear their town, themselves, and each other. Jennifer is also co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sounding Out!: The Sound Studies Blog, and her book ”The Sonic Color Line: Race and the Cultural Politics of Listening” was published by New York University Press in 2016.
Event Overview
Panel participants will discuss the transformative work of the Phoenix Players Theatre Group at Auburn Correctional Facility, the powerful experience of teaching poetry at Stateville Prison in Illinois, and the “sonic color line” that encompasses both racialized listening practices and the enforcement of racialized power in the United States.
What You'll Learn
- How the Phoenix Players Theatre Group (PPTG) uses the transformative process of theatre workshops to repair and restore aspects of humanity that may have been fractured during incarceration
- The experiences of a PPTG workshop participant and how the effects of the group still evolve within him, even after returning home
- The experience of teaching poetry at Stateville Prison
- The pedagogy and power of prison poetry, including the relationship between empowerment and education, the subtleties of microaggressions, affirmations found in unexpected places, and the power of poetic language in legal writing
- What the “sonic color line” is, how it is used to enforce racialized power, and how it is registered in sound artworks
- How prison activists work to liberate themselves and others via study, collectivity, creativity, and sonic affirmations of humanity
Speakers
Larry Greene is a 31-year-old member of the Phoenix Players Theatre Group who used his time to find his natural calling as a life coach and mentor via theatre. Since his release, Larry has enrolled at Nyack College for his Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Business; he is also a full-time construction laborer in Flushing, Queens.
Tara Betts is the author of two poetry collections, ”Break the Habit” and ”Arc & Hue,” as well as the forthcoming ”Refuse to Disappear.” She also co-edited ”The Beiging of America” and edited a critical edition of Philippa Duke Schuyler’s ”Adventures in Black and White.” Her sci-fi-related writing has appeared in ”Cicada,” ”Near Kin: A Collection of Words and Art Inspired by Octavia Estelle Butler,” “Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements,” and the Hugo-nominated ”Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia Butler.” Tara’s work has also appeared in The Breakbeat Poets, The Long Term, Essence magazine, Poetry magazine, and many other publications. In addition to her work as a teaching artist and mentor for young poets, she has taught a weekly poetry workshop at Stateville Prison and has taught at several universities, including Rutgers University and University of Illinois-Chicago. In 2019, she published a poem celebrating Illinois’ bicentennial with Candor Arts. Tara is Poetry Editor at Another Chicago Magazine and The Langston Hughes Review, and she is the Lit Editor at Newcity.
Jennifer Lynn Stoever earned her Ph.D. in American Studies and Ethnicity from USC. Her dissertation, “The Contours of the Sonic Color-Line: Slavery, Segregation, and the Cultural Politics of Listening,” was a 2007 finalist for the American Studies Association Dissertation Prize. She serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Popular Music Studies, Sound Studies, and Social Text. Jennifer has published in Social Text, Social Identities, Sound Effects, American Quarterly, and Radical History Review, among others; her article “Fine-Tuning the Sonic Color-line: Radio and the Acousmatic Du Bois“ was recently published in Modernist Cultures and is the featured online article of the issue. During 2011-2012, she was a fellow at The Society for the Humanities at Cornell University, participating in the Sound: Culture, Theory, Politics research group. Currently Associate Professor at SUNY Binghamton, Jennifer teaches courses on African American literature, sound studies, and race and gender representation in popular music. She also is the project coordinator for the Binghamton Historical Soundwalk Project, a multi-year archival and civically engaged art project designed to challenge how Binghamton students and year-round residents hear their town, themselves, and each other. Jennifer is also co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sounding Out!: The Sound Studies Blog, and her book ”The Sonic Color Line: Race and the Cultural Politics of Listening” was published by New York University Press in 2016.
Larry Greene is a 31-year-old member of the Phoenix Players Theatre Group who used his time to find his natural calling as a life coach and mentor via theatre. Since his release, Larry has enrolled at Nyack College for his Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Business; he is also a full-time construction laborer in Flushing, Queens.
Tara Betts is the author of two poetry collections, ”Break the Habit” and ”Arc & Hue,” as well as the forthcoming ”Refuse to Disappear.” She also co-edited ”The Beiging of America” and edited a critical edition of Philippa Duke Schuyler’s ”Adventures in Black and White.” Her sci-fi-related writing has appeared in ”Cicada,” ”Near Kin: A Collection of Words and Art Inspired by Octavia Estelle Butler,” “Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements,” and the Hugo-nominated ”Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia Butler.” Tara’s work has also appeared in The Breakbeat Poets, The Long Term, Essence magazine, Poetry magazine, and many other publications. In addition to her work as a teaching artist and mentor for young poets, she has taught a weekly poetry workshop at Stateville Prison and has taught at several universities, including Rutgers University and University of Illinois-Chicago. In 2019, she published a poem celebrating Illinois’ bicentennial with Candor Arts. Tara is Poetry Editor at Another Chicago Magazine and The Langston Hughes Review, and she is the Lit Editor at Newcity.
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