publications: books
sounding bodies: identity, injustice, and the voice (2021)
Co-authored with Ann J. Cahill, Professor of Philosophy, Elon University
A new, provocative study of the ethical, political, and social meanings of the everyday voice. Utilising the framework of feminist philosophy, authors Ann J. Cahill and Christine Hamel approach the phenomenon of voice as a lived, sonorous and embodied experience marked by the social structures that surround it, including systemic forms of injustice such as ableism, sexism, racism, and classism.
“In compelling and intricately argued ways, the authors make a resounding case for understanding how vocal sonority is intrinsic to self-identity and self-reception … Required Reading.”
- Jane Boston, Course Leader, MA/MFA Voice Studies, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, author of Voice (2018)
“An engaging and timely text and an important contribution to the emergent field of voice studies. It offers an alternative way to think and talk about voice that the reader could then translate into ways of working with and training actors’ voices … I encourage every voice trainer and coach to keep a copy on their bookshelf and refer to it often.”
- Tara McAllister-Viel, Head of Voice and Speech, East 15 Acting School, author of Training Actors’ Voices: Towards and Intercultural/Interdisciplinary Approach (2019)
publications: book chapters
‘toward intervocality: linklater, the body, and contemporary feminist theory’, voice and identity, first edition, edited by rockford samson (2025)
Abstract:
Voice and Identity draws from the knowledge and expertise of leading figures to explore the evolving nature of voice training in the performing arts. The authors in this international collection look through both practical and theoretical lenses as they connect voice studies to equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging, and to gender and gender diversity. The book offers chapters that focus on practical tools and tips for voice teachers, and the text also includes chapters that give rich social, cultural, and theoretical discussions that are both academic and accessible, with a particular focus on gender diverse, gender non-binary, transgender, and inclusionary voice research. Offering interdisciplinary insights from voice practitioners and scholars from the disciplines of actor training, singing, public speaking, voice science, communication, philosophy, women’s studies, Indigenous studies, gender studies, and sociology, this book will be a key resource for practitioners and researchers engaged in these fields. The chapters in this book were originally published in the Voice and Speech Review journal.
publications: articles
‘the swirl of emotion among us: affect, the voice, and performance training’, british journal of aesthetics (2024)
Co-authored with Ann J. Cahill
In forthcoming special issue on Embodied Voices: Aesthetics and Ethics of Bodies in Performance
Abstract:
Our recent theory of intervocality provided a new model of voice as material, relational, and socially constructed. However, our work did not substantially address the complex relationship between voice and emotion, or how that complex relationship could be taken up more effectively and ethically in actor training and the theatre studio. Utilizing insights from affect theory, cultural psychology, and affective neuroscience, this article argues for the need for pedagogies that substantively engage with the cultural specificity of emotion, affect, and voice, to create more just practices and experiences within the training studio and in performance.
‘Philosophizing About/With the Voice: Deploying Theory to Deepen Practices Committed to Vocal Justice’, Voice and speech review, Vol 18, no. 1 (2024)
co-authored with Ann J. Cahill
VASTA Keynote Address, La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico, July 11, 2023
sounding bodies: identity injustice and the voice (symposium)
Syndicate: A Living Network of Scholarship in the Humanities (2023)
With contributions from Joshua St. Pierre, Jack Leff, Antonio Ocampo-Guzmán, and Margaret Laurena Kemp, and author replies from Ann J. Cahill and Christine Hamel. Curated by Ada D. Jaarsma.
‘toward intervocality: linklater, the body, and contemporary feminist theory’, Voice and speech review, Vol 13, no. 2 (2019)
Co-authored with Ann J. Cahill
Abstract:
This article inaugurates a conversation between the fields of voice training and contemporary feminist theories of the body, beginning with a consideration of the development of Kristin Linklater’s highly influential work Freeing the Natural Voice, and the significant advancements it represented in the field of voice. The article proceeds to a description of the field of contemporary feminist theories of the body, highlighting those insights and developments that either resonate most clearly with Linklater’s work or represent promising avenues for the next evolution of voice training. The article then argues that such evolution should take up more directly the relationality of the voice (what the article terms “intervocality”), an understanding of the body as ineluctably embedded within social and political dynamics, and a recognition of the profound influence of structural inequality on both vocality in general and vocal training in particular.
publications: interviews
‘why policing the way voices sound has to stop’, the brink: pioneering research from boston university (2020)
Interview by Kat J. McAlpine and Art Jahnke
“BU vocal theory researcher argues that to fight oppression, we must embrace the kaleidoscopic identities—and sounds—of marginalized voices”