[Commlist] CFP Radical Ventriloquism: Acts of Speaking Through and Speaking For

RADICAL VENTRILOQUISM: ACTS OF SPEAKING THROUGH AND SPEAKING FOR
Organisers: LEE CAMPBELL and CHRISTABEL HARLEY

CONFERENCE STREAM AS PART OF LONDON CRITICAL THOUGHT CONFERENCE, 
GOLDSMITHS, LONDON
JULY 2019

http://londoncritical.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/LCCT-2019-Call-for-Papers.pdf

Please send 250 WORD submissions to (paper-subs /at/ londoncritical.org). by 
MARCH 25TH 2019

'[V]entriloqual relationships can be utilized as a metaphor, perhaps a 
paradigm, for generating ideas and organising phenomena of key 
philosophical interest [...]. In an unbridled, personal anthropomorphism 
we speak for things, as if things were speaking to us, reading their 
meanings for us, in voices of their own which, are, at the same time, of 
course, only our altered voices dislocated. The ventriloquist’s audience 
becomes part of the total context of the act – a kind of witness and 
judge of the ventriloquist’s performance.' (Goldblatt, 2006)

Ventriloquism, in its most common usage, refers to a form of popular 
entertainment consisting of performers giving voice to inanimate objects 
through a careful interplay between what is heard and what is seen. The 
beginnings of ventriloquism can be cited in the jester’s sceptre. The 
jester gained power by not using his own voice. He spoke through the 
voice of his sceptre—a miniature representation of his own face. 
Similarly, ventriloquists speak through their puppets as a way of 
“distancing” themselves from criticism.

This stream explores expanded forms of ventriloquism and asks: ‘What may 
constitute a radical ventriloquism?’ and explores the possibilities of 
‘radical ventriloquism’ and its potential as useful and applicable to 
enabling important discussions about what it may mean to ‘speak through’ 
and ‘speak for’ others/objects/things across a range of 
artistic/creative disciplines. Whilst recognising that ‘in Nietzsche’, 
as suggests David Goldblatt, ‘the artist allows certain forces which he 
designates at will, to move and speak through him.’, we particularly 
welcome submissions from individuals and groups from beyond arts and 
humanities. We are most interested to explore how, for example, a 
scientist would conceptualise ‘radical ventriloquism’?

Leading on from the previous quote, Goldblatt, in Art and ventriloquism 
usefully goes on to remind us that, ‘in Foucault, while certain persons 
speak for things (art and nature), persons also speak for other persons, 
those muted in the social Diaspora such as the mad, the poor, the sick, 
and the imprisoned.’ Disability is often presented and represented by 
abled-bodied medics and others. This aligns with Linda Alcoff’s 
assertion in The Problem of Speaking for Others (1992) that ‘privileged 
authors who speak on behalf of the oppressed is becoming increasingly 
criticized by members of those oppressed groups themselves’. In 
response, we invite papers that theorise, articulate and demonstrate how 
radical ventriloquism nudges at these crucial debates: ethics/politics 
of representation / giving voice to those ‘marginalised’.

We encourage submissions which question who gets to (and who should) 
speak for whom. We are most interested in receiving submissions that 
reflect upon how radical ventriloquism may be understood in critical 
pedagogy terms in relation to, for example, decolonizing the curriculum. 
What does it mean for a white person to be lecturing on postcolonial 
theory, a white man teaching feminism, or, as Calvin Thomas explores in 
Straight with a Twist (1999), a straight man lecturing on queer theory?



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