Free Listening - (Provocations) by Naomi Waltham-Smith (Paperback)

About the Book

Free Listening argues that, instead of free speech, progressives should claim the more radical mantle of free listening and abolish obstacles to equality of audibility.

Book Synopsis

Free Listening offers a radical reframing of seemingly intractable debates and polarized positions on free speech, academic freedom, systemic injustice, and political dissent by shifting attention from our voices to our ears. Instead of reclaiming the terrain of free speech that is increasingly ceded to conservatives, Naomi Waltham-Smith argues that progressives should assume a more radical task--to liberate listening from those frameworks that have determined what freedom looks like, who enjoys it, and at what cost. Refocusing on aural responsiveness forces a confrontation with the liberal tradition that has traditionally anchored claims for freedom of expression and inquiry. If listening is placed at the heart of public deliberation and disagreeing well, the relational, open-ended, and unpredictable character of free expression becomes a common good.

In a wide-ranging critical reflection on issues from civility to criticality, righteous anger to gentle listening, and silencing to streaming platforms, Free Listening makes an ambitious contribution to sound studies and political philosophy. Weaving together deconstruction, Black political thought, and decolonial theory, Waltham-Smith argues that the retort to accusations of "cancel culture" should be a revival of abolition democracy.

Review Quotes

"How not just to listen but also to rethink the concept of listening in the context of free speech debates: this is Free Listening's urgent question. To answer it, Naomi Waltham-Smith places Continental political philosophy in conversation with leading voices in Black, feminist, and decolonial thought. She translates complex, long-standing concepts and debates into terms legible to a broad public and offers a dramatic and far-reaching reconstruction of ethics understood as aural attention."--Erin Graff Zivin, author of Anarchaeologies: Reading as Misreading

About the Author

Naomi Waltham-Smith is a professor at the University of Oxford and Douglas Algar Tutorial Fellow at Merton College. She is the author of several books, including Music and Belonging Between Revolution and Restoration and Shattering Biopolitics: Militant Listening and the Sound of Life.