Skip to main content

Programme

Programme ( You can also download the programme here as a PDF )
Sounds of a Lifetime: Exploring Life Writing in Audio Media
29–30 January 2026, HOEK 38, Leuvenseweg 38, 1000 Brussels

DAY 0: January 28
DAY 1: January 29
DAY 2: January 30
15:00–16:30

At Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Pleinlaan 2, Building C, 3rd floor, room 3C.204):

Pre-Conference Workshop: Marit MacArthur, University of California, Davis: Slow
Listening: How to Study Audio Recordings as Vocal Performance?

Please register here: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/DKGR0i8sCV

9:00–9:20

Registration

9:20–9:30

Introduction

9:30–10:30

Memoirs in Sound: “Reading” Anthony Joseph’s Auto/Biographical Jazz Poetry

Keynote:

Julia Lajta-Novak picture
Julia Lajta-Novak
10:30–11:00

Coffee Break

11:00–12:30

Panel 1: Personal and Collective Narratives on Radio (3 papers x 20 min + 30 min Q&A)

  • Iana Nikitenko, Vrije Universiteit Brussel: Memories of Our Fathers: The Poetics of Family Life Writing in German Radio Drama (1970s–1980s)
  • Matilda Jones, Freie Universität Berlin: Sounding Sororal Subjectivities in Kaitlin Prest’s ‘SISTERS’
  • Lukas Kosch, University of Vienna: The Individual Voice Against Collective Forgetting: On the Function and Form of Jean Améry’s Radio Essays
12:30–13:30

 Lunch

13:30–15:30

Panel 2: Sonic Self-Narratives and Autotheory (4 papers × 20 min + 30 min Q&A)

  • Desirée Henderson, University of Texas Arlington: What Does a Diary Sound Like? The Sonification of the Diary in Nonfiction and Fiction Audiotexts
  • Kim Fox, The American University in Cairo: Sonic Testimonies: Student Audio Diaries as Intimate Life Narratives
  • Hannah McGregor, Simon Fraser University: Scholarly Podcasting as Audible Autotheory
  • Patricia Frazis, Australian National University: Narratorial Authority and Identity in Autobiographical Fiction: Listening to Lost Children Archive
15:30–16:00

Coffee Break

16:00–17:00

Fraudiobooks?: Audio Fraud from the Analog Era to AI

Keynote:

Matthew Rubery picture
Matthew Rubery
19:00

Conference Dinner (Les Petites Oignons; Regentschapsstraat, 25, 1000 Brussels)

9:30–10:30

A Life in Music: Ror Wolf’s Radio Ballad Leben und Tod des Kornettisten Bix Beiderbecke aus Nord-Amerika

Keynote:

Jarmila Mildorf picture
Jarmila Mildorf
10:30–11:00

Coffee Break

11:00–12:30

Panel 3: Music and Creative Sound as Forms of Life Writing (3 papers x 20 min + 30 min Q&A)

  • Valeriya Lindström, Lund University: Russian Anti-War Music and the Creation of Counter-History
  • Ingibjörg Ágústsdóttir, University of Iceland: Rewriting Anne Bonny: Karliene’s Musical Tribute to a Pirate Queen
  • Manon Houtart, University of Namur: Les Rizières Duras (2003): Sonic Forms of Biographemes in Franck Smith’s Radio Essay
12:30–13:30

Lunch

13:30–15:00

Panel 4: Experiments and Collaborations (3 papers x 20 min + 30 min Q&A)

  • Virginia Madsen, Macquarie University: The audio portraiture of Kaye Mortley: ‘the self, told, is at once a fiction’
  • Louisa Léo, Sorbonne Nouvelle: The Radio Interview as Life Story or Self narrative?
  • Tien Phat Nguyen, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen: The Audio Construction of Identities and Memories in A Man of Two Faces by Viet Thanh Nguyen
15:00–15:30

Coffee Break

15:30–17:00

Panel 5: Diasporic and Indigenous Voices (3 papers x 20 min + 30 min Q&A)

  • Bénédicte Ledent, University of Liège: From Biography to Autobiography: Caryl Phillips’s Radiophonic Lifewriting
  • Jason Wiens, University of Calgary: Exploring an Indigenous Literary Audio Archive as Individual and Collective Autobiography
  • Preenika S., Anu Kuriakose, NIT Trichy: Podcasting as Feminist Life Writing: Resisting Gendered Public Spaces in Kerala, India
17:00–17:30

Concluding Remarks