Campus
- Downtown Toronto (St. George)
Areas of Interest
- American Literature
- Sound Studies
- Queer Theory
- Aesthetics and Form
- Desire
- Affect
- Popular Music Studies
Biography
My research attunes to sonic phenomena in late-19th to mid-20th century American literature, such as echoes, silences, noise, music, and other acoustic elements, to explore alternative modes of being with-in and with-out the world. I suggest that such constellations of sound hold the potential to express queer formations of individuality, sociality, and desire. My work insists that listening—as a bodily and affective tool for making sense of the world—forges intimacies with and understandings of others that can provide critical insights into diverse inhabitations and habits of selfhood.
List of Publications
Refereed Publications
MacDonald, Cameron. “‘Befo’ de Wah’: Sounding Out Ill-Legibility in Charles W. Chesnutt’s Conjure Stories.” Sound Studies in African American Literature and Culture, special issue of Humanities, edited by Nicole Brittingham Furlonge, vol. 11, no. 6, 2022, pp. 1-11. doi: 10.3390/h11060137.
Cecchetto, David and Cameron MacDonald. “Listening through a Pandemic: Silence, Noisemaking, and Music.” Creative Resilience and COVID-19: Figuring the Everyday in a Pandemic, edited by Irene Gammel and Jason Wang, Routledge, 2022, pp. 39-48.
Non-refereed Publications
MacDonald, Cameron. Review of Listening to the Fur Trade: Soundways and Music in the British North American Fur Trade, 1760–1840, written by Daniel Robert Laxer. University of Toronto Quarterly, vol. 92, no. 3, 2023 (forthcoming).
MacDonald, Cameron. “Trench Warfare School: An Ontario Bookkeeper’s War Diary.” Operation Canada, October 2020.
Selected Academic Conferences
MacDonald, Cameron. “‘A Story that Wasn’t in the Words’: Music and Mothering in Ann Petry’s The Street.” Northeastern Modern Language Association (NeMLA), Niagara Falls, NY, 23-26 March 2023. Roundtable, African American Music and Literature.
MacDonald, Cameron. “Songs Along the Keyboard: Listening Around Frank O’Hara.” Modern Language Association (MLA), Washington, DC, 6-9 January 2022. Roundtable, Poetry and Sound: Beyond Voice, sponsored by GS Poetry and Poetics.
MacDonald, Cameron. “The Hum of Humor: Listening to Queer Laughter in Nella Larsen’s Passing.” Modern Language Association (MLA), Toronto (online), 7-10 January 2021. Panel, Laughter & Feminist Critical Thought, sponsored by MS Screen Arts and Culture.
MacDonald, Cameron. “‘And Finished knowing — then —’: Queer Time-Spaces and Ecologies of Death in Emily Dickinson’s Poetics.” (De)Composing Death: An Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference, Dalhousie University, Halifax, 10-12 August 2018.
Selected Academic Awards
SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship - Doctoral, 2022-25
Viola Whitney Pratt Memorial OSOTF Scholarship, 2021-22
Shane Baghai Scholarship in English Literature, University of Toronto, 2017-18