Musicology Distinguished Lecture Series

Historical Musicology & Ethnomusicology

Each year the Musicology Area of UT's School of Music invites outstanding scholars and performers from around the country and abroad to participate in the Distinguished Lecture Series. Many of these lectures are cosponsored with other areas within the School of Music or other departments of the university. Participants are chosen to reflect the interests of our faculty and students, to foster interdisciplinary relationships within the university, and to enhance our campus offerings with diverse and innovative approaches to musical practice, philosophy and scholarship. Our guests present lectures and interactive workshops that demonstrate the best of their current music research. Past participants of the DLS include Dale Cockrell, Paul Berliner, Zim Ngqawana, Susan McClary, and Paul Théberge.

Distinguished Lecture Series 2012-2013

• "Thoreau's Pastoral Music," Dr. Jeff Titon, Professor of Ethnomusicology, Brown University
  
  Explores Thoreau as a musical radical, flute player and singer, whose aural insights, as recorded in his writings, open up new avenues for public conversation on issues concerning contemporary sustainability debates. (See also, "Thoreau's Pastoral Music" Flyer [pdf])
  
  This talk is made possible by the Humanities Center Visiting Scholar Project and the University of Tennessee School of Music.
  • Wednesday, October 3, 2012, 3:45-4:45 p.m., Auditorium, First floor, John C. Hodges Library

• "The transformative role of music in a nation's rebirth: Music for a new South Africa," Dr. Sheila Woodward, Chair of Music & Associate Professor of Music Education, Eastern Washington University
  
  This lecture explores music as part of the South African freedom struggle through examples of traditional ethnic, jazz and popular music from the freedom struggle in their historical contexts. Woodward argues for music's celebratory role as the new democratic order heralded in the first black President Nelson Mandela, and the exciting intercultural musical collaborations that demonstrated how "music...can do more than mirror society, it can be a participating force in change (Woodward, 1994, p. 198). ( (See also, "Music for a new South Africa" Flyer [pdf])
  
  This talk is made possible by the University of Tennessee School of Music and The National Symposium on Multicultural Music.
• Monday, October 8, 2012, 3:30-4:30 p.m., HSS Building, Room 115

• "The Specter of Early Cinema Music in Video Games," Dr. Neil Lerner, Professor of Music, Davidson College
  
  Though the computing technology of the 1970s was primitive, even the earliest of video games supplied some kind of audible component, and what began as formless bleeps quickly became recognizable melodies as early as 1977. Examining music from these early attempts at video game sound reveals a series of similarities with the ways music was deployed in early cinema accompaniment. Examples will include clips from Circus (1977), Space Invaders (1978), Phoenix (1980), Scramble (1981), and Donkey Kong (1982).
  
  Musicologist Neil Lerner teaches at Davidson College in North Carolina. He has published on a wide variety of topics relating to music in screen media, including music in film, television, and video games. He co-edited Sounding Off: Theorizing Disability in Music with Joseph Straus and edited Music in the Horror Film: Listening to Fear. Lerner is currently editing the book series Music and Screen Media (Routledge), co-editing Music in Video Games (Routledge) and The Oxford Handbook of Music and Disability Studies, and serving as Editor of the journal American Music (University of Illinois Press). (See also, http://www3.davidson.edu/cms/x24508.xml)
  • Friday, Feburary 8, 2013, 3:30–4:30 PM, HSS 114

• "Pachuco, Nostalgia, Danzón, and Masculinity on the Mexican Dance Floor," Dr. Alejandro L. Madrid, Associate Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago
  
  Based on fieldwork in Mexico City this paper takes the notion of nostalgia to explore how contemporary male dancers of danzón develop musical and dancing personae in relation to media representations of 1940s and 1950s Mexican masculinities. The paper focuses on the pachucos, a growing group of dancers from different danzón scenes in the country that get their inspiration from zoot suit culture to generate icons of Mexican masculinity based on values that contemporary society growingly finds more and more objectionable. I argue that the public presentation of their pachuco dancing persona provides a space for the negotiation of their aspirations and desires, and the expectations from society. These pachuco dancing personae bring back the mystique of chivalry and aggressiveness of a masculinity found desirable at the height of the Mexican project of nation building, but one that seems to slowly fade away in the growingly transnational culture that contemporary Mexicans live in. However, I suggest that Mexican danzón dancing pachuco represent a contradictory and obscure aspect of gender relations that placed masculinity at the center of Mexican nationality and refuses to go away in contemporary Mexico. (See also, Alejandro L. Madrid DLS Flyer [pdf] and http://www.uic.edu/las/latamst/directory/madrid.shtml)
  
  
  • Thursday, March 7, 2013, 2:10–3:25 PM, AMB 32

• THE WINNERS OF THE 2013 STUDENT RESEARCH CONTEST IN MUSIC

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• First Prize--Kevin O'Brien, "Embodying Comic Identities in Late- Nineteenth-Century American Parlor Song Performance"
• Second Prize--Tyler Mitchell, "Embodying Music: Perspectives of Conducting through Film and Performance" 2013 Contest Winners DLS Flyer [pdf]

• Tuesday April 23 at 4 pm, HSS Room 113