Presented in person and online via Zoom, login details below.

This presentation examines the audiobook as a medium in which entrenched assumptions about vocal authenticity collide with the technological ease of deception. Focusing on various forms of life writing, it proposes the concept of the ‘audiobiographical pact’ to describe the widespread belief that hearing an author speak offers privileged access to lived experience. Far from guaranteeing authenticity, however, this reliance on vocal presence has made audiobooks particularly susceptible to fraud. By tracing the long history of vocal imposture from early phonograph hoaxes to contemporary AI voice-cloning, it will be shown that counterfeit voices are not a uniquely digital problem but a persistent feature of recorded sound that future audiences might even come to embrace.

Matthew Rubery is Professor of Modern Literature at Queen Mary University of London. His books include Reader’s Block: A History of Reading Differences (2022), The Untold Story of the Talking Book (2016), Audiobooks, Literature, and Sound Studies (2011), and Further Reading (2020), a collection of essays for the series Oxford Twenty-First Century Approaches to Literature.

Zoom link:  https://anu.zoom.us/j/82759016624?pwd=o5ib6MRzO9R0hbVBcvTA4dlsphNbMn.1