Upcoming Events:

“Stolen Signals and Whispering Wires: Olmstead v. United States in Context.” Invited lecture, Federal Judicial Center/American Bar Association Summer Institute (June 2023).

Previous Talks:

“Stringer Bell’s Cell: Wiretapping the War on Drugs.” Invited lecture, Cordell Institute, Washington University School of Law, St. Louis MO (September 2022).

Karla Scherer Center for American Culture, University of Chicago, Chicago IL (May 2022) - in conversation w/ Eric Slauter.

New York State Public Library, Albany NY (April 2022).

Commonwealth Club, San Francisco CA (March 2022).

City Lights, San Francisco, CA (March 2022) - in conversation w/ Matthew Guariglia.

Loganberry Books, Cleveland, OH (February 2022).

Politics and Prose, Washington, DC (February 2022) - in conversation w/ Marcia Chatelain.

“Dirty Business: A Short History of Wiretapping in Corporate America.” American Studies Association, San Juan PR (November 2021).

“Secret Ciphers, Whispering Wires: A Short History of Wiretapping in Corporate America.” Seeing Like a Capitalist: Histories of Commercial Surveillance in America. Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington DE (November 2018).

“Wiretapping: An All-American History.” Keynote Lecture, Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne, Melbourne AU (July 2018).

“Big Brother Where Art Thou: The Telephone Tap and the Invention of the American Surveillance State.” New Histories of State Surveillance. American Historical Association, Washington DC (January 2018).

“Little Brother, Big Brother: The Telephone Tap and the Invention of the American Surveillance State.” Sonic Battlegrounds. American Studies Association, Chicago IL (November 2018).

“The Wiretap Jitters.” American Comparative Literature Association, Utrecht NL (July 2017).

“To Intercept and Divulge: Electronic Eavesdropping and the Origins of the American Surveillance State.” Invited Lecture, University of Pennsylvania Department of English, Philadelphia PA (February 2017).

“Wiretapping for National Security: A Prehistory.” Invited Lecture, Amherst College Center for Humanistic Inquiry, Amherst MA (February 2017).

“Judith Coplon’s Telephone: Wiretapping for National Security, 1934-1978.” Secrecy, Security, and the Public. Trowbridge Initiative in American Culture, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana IL (October 2016).

“The Wiretapper’s Nest.” Sound in Theory, Sound in Practice. Sound Studies Cluster, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson NY (April 2016).

“The Bug in the Martini Olive: Privacy and Publicity in the Age of the Transistor.” Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Atlanta GA (March 2016).

“Shelf Life: The Sound of Race on Wax, 1890/2015.” Race and Media Theory. Yale University Department of English, New Haven CT (March 2016).

“Of Empty Idols and Bugged Martinis: Privacy in the Age of the Transistor.” Invited Lecture, Yale University Department of Film Studies/English, New Haven CT (February 2016).

“Tapping God’s Telephone: Technology and Privacy in Sixties America.”  Invited Lecture, University of California-Davis Center for Science and Innovation Studies, Davis CA (December 2015).

“The Passamaquoddy Experiment: The Lives (and Deaths) of Early Ethnographic Recordings.”  Invited Lecture, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC (December 2015). Watch video here.

“Wiretapping Auditory Knowledge.”  Auditory Knowledge in the Arts.  Georgetown University Department of German, Washington DC (September 2015).

“A Nation Overheard: Histories and Technologies of Eavesdropping in the United States.”  Media Archaeology and the Digital Age. University of Maryland Department of Film Studies, College Park MD (April 2015).

“God’s Telephone (and How to Tap It).” Paleofuturisms. University of Louisville, Louisville KY (April 2015).

“Document or Documentary?: The Case of In the Land of the Headhunters.” Modern Language Association, Vancouver BC (January 2015).

“The Ethnographic Origins of Modern Media: A Brief History, in Color.” Invited Lecture, Penn State University Center for Digital Culture and Media, State College PA (December 2014).  Click here to read a follow-up interview.

“Eavesdrop Nation: The Rise of the Wiretap Confessional, 1959-1974.” American Studies Association, Los Angeles CA (November 2014).

“Record: The Arts, Materials, and Myths of Cultural Permanence.” Keywords for American Cultural Studies: A Symposium in Honor of Professor Werner Sollors. Harvard University, Cambridge MA (October 2014).

Commentator, “Obscured Paths of Coercion and Opportunity in Post-WWII America.” Canadian Association for American Studies, Banff AB (September 2014).

“Periodizing the Senses.” C19 Americanist Conference, Chapel Hill NC (March 2014).

“Vanishing Red: A Brief History of Ethnographic Color Photography.” Invited Lecture, Vassar College Department of American Studies, Poughkeepsie NY (February 2014).

“The Invention of Tribal Man; or, Life Before Media.” Modern Language Association, Chicago IL (January 2014).

Moderator, “Assertions: Andes, Mesoamerica, Canada.” Becoming Indigenous, Asserting Indigeneity. Georgetown University, Washington DC (March 2013).

“Indian, Sign, Cinema: The Ethnographic Films of Richard Sanderville.” American Studies Association, San Juan PR (November 2012).

“Writing Motion: The Life and Work of Garrick Mallery.” C19 Americanist Conference, Berkeley CA (April 2012).

Moderator, “Racial Impressions and Religious Expressions.” C19 Americanist Conference, Berkeley CA (April 2012).

“Plains Indian Sign Language and the Protocinematic Aesthetic.” Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Boston MA (March 2012).

“Frozen Evanescence: Writing Plains Indian Sign Language, c. 1880.” Modern Language Association, Seattle WA (January 2012).

“Indians, Languages, and the Origins of Modern Media.” Invited Lecture, UC Santa Barbara Department of English, Santa Barbara CA (February 2011).

“Racial Stereoscopy: Robert Flaherty and the Samoan Reality Effect.” Modern Language Association, Los Angeles CA (January 2011).

“Panchromatic Stock, Stereoscopic Skin: Robert and Frances Flaherty’s Moana Reconsidered.” Northeast Historic Film Symposium, Bucksport ME (July 2010).

“Race, Empire, and the Skin of the Documentary Image.” Dartmouth Futures of American Studies Institute, Hanover NH (June 2010).

“Lower Frequencies: Audio-Ethnography and the Limits of Cross-Cultural Listening.” Modern Language Association, Philadelphia PA (December 2009).

Moderator, “Making New Literary History” (with Bharati Mukherjee, David Treuer). Writing Cultural History Today: A Symposium on the Publication of A New Literary History of America. Harvard University, Cambridge MA (November 2009).

“Teaching with (and without) Technology.” Derek Bok Center for Teaching Conference, Harvard University, Cambridge MA (August 2009).

“Inaudible Witness: Nathaniel Mackey’s Bedouin Hornbook.” Harvard University Graduate Music Conference, Cambridge MA (March 2009).

“Original and Aboriginal: Race and Mechanical Reproduction in the Phonographic Age.” Northeast Modern Language Association. Boston MA (February 2009).

“Ghost Notes: Nathaniel Mackey on Miles Davis.” American Studies Association, Albuquerque NM (October 2008).