In this episode of Sounding Freedom and Liberation we speak to Dr Beryl Pong and learn about her work, which spans from the inter-war period between the first and second world wars to contemporary warfare and the use of drones. Discover how music and sound are involved in world-making, how atmosphere politics influences the ability to think, act, and be, how everyday soundscapes are transformed by sirens and drones, and how individual and collective freedom is dynamically negotiated under such constraints.
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Biography
Dr Beryl Pong is an academic and researcher with interdisciplinary interests in modern and contemporary war; aesthetics; philosophies of space and time; and literary, sound, and visual cultures. She is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow hosted by the Centre for the Future of Intelligence and the Institute for Technology and Humanity at the University of Cambridge, where she leads the Centre for Drones and Culture.
Beryl’s writing
“‘The Zoom of a Hornet’: Virginia Woolf, Aural Biopolitics, and the Phenomenology of an Air Raid”, in Modern Fiction, Disability, and the Hearing Sciences, 95–113, ed. Edward Allen. London: Routledge, 2024.
Links to accompany the episode
The Blue Skies exhibition at the Imperial War Museum: https://www.iwm.org.uk/events/beware-blue-skies-the-psychology-of-drone-warfare
A longer write-up for Beware Blue Skies: https://www.centrefordronesandculture.com/beware-blue-skies
Beryl recommends …
“Living Under Drones: Death, Injury, and Trauma to Civilians from US Drone Practices in Pakistan”. International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic at Stanford Law School and Global Justice Clinic at NYU School of Law. 2012: https://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Stanford-NYU-LIVING-UNDER-DRONES.pdf
Rancière, Jacques. The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible. London and New York: Continuum, 2004.
Podcast hosts
Dr Férdia Stone-Davis: www.ferdiastonedavis.com
Dr Charissa Granger: https://sta.uwi.edu/fhe/dlcc/dr-charissa-granger
Podcast acknowledgements
The Sounding Freedom and Liberation music was composed by Samuel J. Wilson. Website: https://www.samueljwilson.com/profile
The Sounding Freedom and Liberation logo was designed by Pavlína Kašparová. Website: https://www.creativenun.com/bio
The Podcast was recorded at the Media Lab, the West Hub, Cambridge, and was edited by Mike Chivers
