Call for Proposals Hate and NonHuman Listening *A Guest Series for *Sounding Out! *guest edited by Kathryn Huether*Submission Deadline: Monday, July 14, 2025, by 11:59pm PDT Please send a proposed title and 300–350 word abstract to: kathryn.huether@gmail.com Final pieces should be ~1200 words. Four will be selected for publication. We invite submissions for a guest series on Hate and NonHuman Listening, which critically examines how artificial intelligence and algorithmic systems are increasingly tasked with listening to, moderating, and at times amplifying hate—whether through speech, sound, or silence. This series begins with Todd Presner’s *Ethics of the Algorithm <https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691258966/ethics-of-the-algorithm?srsltid=AfmBOop6sK1i3trj-PgcGI_mbiqpU5yLfPr5A7Kt8tLDICkUnkbv1c3O>* (2024), which asks what it means to use algorithms ethically. We expand that question to consider how algorithms *listen*—especially when asked to interpret, flag, or police harmful content. What happens when the complexities of human hate, trauma, and protest are processed through systems which were not designed to understand them? And what are the consequences when such systems fail?
From hate speech moderation on social platforms to surveillance technologies deployed under the guise of safety, AI now plays a defining role in deciding which voices are heard, which are silenced, and which are misheard altogether. Dr. Saadia Gabriel <https://saadiagabriel.com/>’s research shows how AI often misflags nonstandard English, AAVE, and protest language as harmful—while overlooking overt hate speech. Similarly, Tonia Sutherland’s *Resurrecting the Black Body <https://www.ucpress.edu/books/resurrecting-the-black-body/paper>* (2023) foregrounds the archival and technological violence that structures digital afterlives, asking how systems listen to (or erase) Black life and death.
We invite critical essays (~1200 words) that explore the entanglements of hate and NonHuman listening. Topics might include: The racialized failures of AI speech recognition and hate speech detection - Algorithmic misinterpretation of protest, dissent, or trauma as hate - Deepfake audio, synthetic voices, and AI-generated propaganda - Moderation, erasure, and the sonic politics of platform-based listening - Archival violence and the ethics of algorithmic listening to Holocaust testimony or genocide - How NonHuman listening extends colonial, carceral, and nationalist logics - Creative resistance to algorithmic infrastructures of hate and misrecognition At a time when AI-driven systems structure public discourse—amplifying some voices, silencing others, and often failing to understand the very nature of harm—this series offers a critical space to ask: how is hate being listened to today? And who gets to define it?Please submit a proposed title and abstract (300–350 words) by Monday, July 14, 2025, to kathryn.huether@gmail.com. Selected contributors will be notified by the end of July. CFP: Hate and NonHuman Listening, Due 14 July 2025 <https://soundstudiesblog.com/cfp-hate-and-nonhuman-listening-due-mon-july-14/> -- Dr. Jennifer Lynn Stoever (hear name <https://namedrop.io/jenniferstoever>) Pronouns: She/her/hers Author of The Sonic Color Line <http://nyupress.org/books/9781479889341/> (NYU Press, 2016) Associate Professor of English State University of New York at Binghamton Located on the unceded land and water of the Onoñda'gegá' (Onondaga) People Zoom Office: https://binghamton.zoom.us/my/profjstoever Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder *Sounding Out!: The Sound Studies Blog* *soundstudiesblog.com <http://www.soundstudiesblog.com/>* https://twitter.com/soundingoutblog Email: jstoever@binghamton.edu **Please note: I am off work email from* *Friday 6 PM to Monday 8 AM. Thank you for your patience! **I know that my working hours may not be yours, so please don't feel obligated to respond to--or even think about--my email outside of your normal work hours.*