Sounding the Alarm

What Digital Humanities and Sound Studies Can Teach Us About Resistance

Abstract

This zine, “Sounding the Alarm: What Digital Humanities and Sound Studies Can Teach Us About Resistance” is a final project I made for DIHU 220: Listening to Digital Archives, taught by Dr. James Blackwell Phelan. I am very grateful to James for letting me explore, play, think out loud, and make something as silly as this in his class.

My work is a collection of things I learned and thought and felt during DIHU 220. Over a year into the genocide in Palestine, into which UBC continues to pour millions of dollars through its investments, I was experiencing a lot of cognitive dissonance between my formal schooling and the world around me. I wanted to find a way to make my coursework relevant to the movements for divestment, climate justice, and queer liberation that I was so invested in outside of class. Here, I have curated some sounds from sound maps and digital archives assigned in class, combined them with a bit of theory and poetry, and noticed what they could offer towards a practice of resistance. I hope you will enjoy!