What Is a Voice?

What Is a Voice? Steph Ceraso | University of Virginia Abstract: Voice cloning technologies. 3D-printed vocal tracts. Digital voice donation banks. While there is a long history of scholarship on voice in rhetoric and writing studies (see Peter Elbow, Kathleen Blake Yancey, Erin Anderson, Jonathan Alexander), recent advancements in vocal technology present an opportunity to reinvigorate and reimagine the concept of voice in the field. What is a voice, exactly? How is voice connected (or not) to identity—to humanity—and does it always need to be? This presentation features a short, experimental audio collage that attempts to explore the relationships among human, animal, and machine voices in addition to a more traditional talk that theorizes the audio performance. Ceraso argues for an ecological understanding of voice. All voices, including spoken and written voices—are highly composed and grounded in an emergent ecology of material relations. This presentation will demonstrate how an ecological approach to voice can unsettle commonplaces about voice in rhetoric and writing studies and offer a nuanced perspective on why voice matters now. *See Attachments for Audio Collage and Essay (including transcript for Audio Collage)