Ballad of the dork-o-phone: Towards a crip vocal technoscience

Abstract

Abstract This piece elucidates the related politics of vocal impairment and vocal prosthesis through a close analysis of the Spokeman Personal Voice Amplifier, a.k.a., the dork-o-phone. Drawing from voice theory, disability studies and phenomenology, I present an analysis of the dork-o-phone in use and challenge the boundaries between disability and impairment. In the process, I also show how vocal impairments and protheses ultimately give the lie to the idea that voices are self-sufficient and can exist without supplementation.