Joelle's last walk to Notkin's party (p. 220)
near-Professor Notkin is holding a party to celebrate passing her Orals in Film & Film-Cartridge Theory, the doctoral program where Joelle—before her retreat into broadcast sound—had met her.
Context
The party's occasion is film theory, and the em-dashed aside compresses Joelle's whole arc through this theme: from film-cartridge doctoral work (and JOI's lens) into "broadcast sound" — the invisible medium. The book's film-theorist circle assembles around its own unknowing star on the night she means to die.