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View all events for category: Literature & poetry

Bodies of Sound: Becoming a Feminist Ear

Explore the deep connection between sound and feminism with a performance by the Chiron Choir, poetry and a panel discussion with the book’s editors.

More details for Purcell Room
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Bodies of Sound: Becoming a Feminist Ear is an anthology of essays and text scores from poets, artists, writers and musicians, including Anne Carson, Svetlana Alexievich, Sara Ahmed, Pauline Oliveros and Don Mee Choi.

It explores sound and listening through a feminist lens of the body: histories and politics come together with sound and listening in the body; it is the body that struggles and survives, listens and speaks, and in which emotions are triggered.

Join editors Irene Revell and Sarah Shin, and contributors Sara Ahmed, Hannah Catherine Jones and Holly Pester, for an event exploring how sonic experience intervenes in realms such as gender, literature, disability and anti-war movements.

‘I am concerned with the power of sound! and what it can do to the body and the mind’, wrote composer Pauline Oliveros in 1973. ‘Sound is everybody’s material. Women’s music is inside women. The time has come to draw it out and see what it is. It might not take the forms that are all neatly trimmed up and available, guaranteed to trigger specific emotions.’

Image credit: Sammy Lee

Need to know

Age guidance
For ages 16+

For your visit

This event is held at the Purcell Room Southbank Centre

The Purcell Room is located in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, which is open from 90 minutes before events start until they finish. It’s closed at all other times.

Concrete interior of Purcell Room entrance at Southbank Centre View larger image

Plan your visit

The Purcell Room is an auditorium located within our Queen Elizabeth Hall.

Getting here

Our address is Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XX.

The nearest tube stations to us are Waterloo and Embankment; Waterloo is also the nearest train station. And more than 20 different London bus routes pass within 500 metres of our venues.  More information on getting here by rail, road or river is available on our Getting here page.

We’re cash-free

Please note that we’re unable to accept cash payments across our venues.

Access

We’re working hard to remove barriers, so that our facilities and events can be accessible to as many people as possible.

All help points, toilets, performance and exhibition spaces at the Southbank Centre are accessible to all, as are the cafes, bars and restaurants. We also have excellent public transport links with step-free access.

All information about booking wheelchair spaces, step-free access, blue badge parking, access maps and guides and other help available whilst you’re here, including details about our Access Scheme, can be found on our Access page.

Food & drink

From coffee to cocktails, filling favourites to fine dining, plus some of London’s best street food – it’s all here at the Southbank Centre.

Places to eat and drink whilst you’re here