This multidisciplinary two-day conference, hosted by UVA’s Sound Justice Lab, brings together lawyers, students, musicians, activists, journalists, artists, and academics to explore the law’s technologies and tactics that try to silence stories, individuals, and groups. Non-disclosure agreements, defamation lawsuits, and evidentiary requirements, for instance, prevent survivors of sexual assault from speaking out against perpetrators. Norms of civility and etiquette may disproportionately discipline gendered and racialized "others” on the witness stand or in the public gallery, while trial transcripts and official records often fail to accurately hear and represent non-normative voices.

All events are free and will be held in various venues across UVA Grounds. Coffee, baked goods, and box lunches will be available. For details on the participants, see SJL/Technologies of Silence.

Thursday, September 19

UVA School of Law; Purcell Reading Room

9:00 – 10:30 AM

Resisting Reproductive Regulation I: The Road to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health

Farah Peterson and Deitra Jones

10:45 – 12:15 PM

Amplifying Transgender Identity: The Art and Advocacy of Resilience

Wyatt Rolla, Breanna Diaz, Robyn Gigl, and Emily Gorcenski

12:15 PM Box lunches available

UVA School of Law; classroom TBD

1:15 – 2:45 PM

Banned Books, Tabooed Art, Unspeakable Subjects

Don Herzog, Mame Fatou Niang, Amy Woolard, and Fred Schauer

Friday, September 20

Colonnade Club Solarium Room

9:30 – 10:30 AM

The Pedagogy of Drag

Darius Rose

10:45 – 12:15 PM

Resisting Reproductive Regulation II: Deep Histories

Sayantan Saha Roy, Sara Butler, and Katherine Churchill

12:15 PM Box lunches available

12:45 – 1:45 PM

The Lawyer-Poet/The Poet-Lawyer

Andrea Dennis, Farah Peterson, and Amy Woolard

Harrison Institute/Small Special Collections auditorium

2:00 – 3:45 PM

Scenes from BIG MOUTH | Testimony

Nomi Dave, Bremen Donovan, Mame Fatou Niang, Mamadou Dia, Marisa Williamson, and Greg Whitmore

Sponsors

The Sound Justice Lab is grateful to UVA Arts & the Vice Provost for the Arts, the Department of Music, the Department of Women, Gender & Sexuality, the Institute of the Humanities & Global Cultures, the Department of Anthropology, and the UVA School of Law for their financial and in-kind support for Technologies of Silence.

The Sound Justice Lab is a space for exploring creative and everyday responses to legal failures and erasures. We use research, advocacy, and creative practice to amplify and support the voices often omitted by formal legal processes.

Co-directors: Anne Coughlin (UVA School of Law), Nomi Dave and Bonnie Gordon (College of Arts & Sciences Music department). Creative director: MG McGehee.