FEMINIST THEORY & MUSIC 17: PROGRAM
Thursday June 20
9:00
Welcome and opening remarks:
Welcome from the Office of the Dean and the School of Music, Theatre and Dance
9:30 – 11:00
Session 1 (Watkins) Singing Sexuality
Session Chair: Charles Lwanga (University of Michigan)
AJ Banta (University of Michigan)
Singing "Out": Radicalism and Assimilation in Washtenaw County’s Queer Community Choir, Out Loud Chorus
Brandon Magid (Indiana University)*
Straightforward? Queering High School Show Choir
Ryan D. Whittington (Emory & Henry University; King University)
Singing in My Grandmother’s Heels: Queering Southern Gospel Music as Activism
11:30 – 1:00
Session 2 (Watkins) Embodying Folklore in the Twentieth Century: Women Performers and Latin American Nationalist Projects (PANEL)
Session Chair: Eduardo Sato (Virginia Tech University)
Eduardo Sato (Virginia Tech University)
Performing Brazilianness for the Good Neighbor: Elsie Houston in New York
Hannah Snavely (UC Riverside)
Staging Character: Margot Loyola and the Interpretation of Chilean Folk Music
Amelia López López (Indiana University)
“Yo Soy el Folclor!” Radical Mestizaje and Practices of Re-existence in the Work of Delia Zapata Olivella
Lunch Break
2:30 – 4:00
KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Britton Hall
Nancy Rao (Rutgers University), "Life History of Archives and Objects: On Chinese Opera Actresses and Theaters in the Americas"
4:30 – 6:00
Session 3a (Watkins) Sex Work in Music Studies: Aesthetic Performances and Aural Cultures of Sex Workers (PANEL)
Session Chair: Siriana Lundgren (Harvard University)
Siriana Lundgren (Harvard University)
The First Ghost in Deadwood: Sonic Staying Power and the Importance of Sex Worker Performance Culture
Eloy F. Ramirez III (Harvard University)
How to be a Sex Goddess, or, Challenging Social Ethics in 101 Easy Steps
Christina Misaki Nikitin (Harvard University)
Fūzoku Queens: Trans* Migrant Sex Performers
Session 3b (Britton) Gender and Contemporary Pop
Session Chair: Lauron Kehrer (Western Michigan University)
Stephen Tian-You Ai (Harvard University)
SOPHIE’s “Faceshopping”: Bonding Play and Listening to the Sonic Trans
Madalyn Pridemore (Western Illinois University)
It’s a Femininomenon: Chappell Roan and the Creation of a Sapphic Genre
Jerika Hayes (Independent Scholar)
Sad Girl Music as Complaint Collective: Joanna Newsom’s Have One on Me and Mitski’s Puberty 2
Friday, June 21
9:00 – 10:30
Session 4a (Watkins) Facing Down Systems of Oppression
Session Chair: Corinne Forstot-Burke (University of Michigan)
Kari Lindquist (University of North Carolina)
From Ann Arbor with Love: Women as Cultural Diplomats on the University of Michigan Symphony Band’s Cold War Tour
Hannah Rosa Schiller (Yale University)
“To age is a sin”: Madonna, aging, and pop music’s audible disruptions of heteronormative time
Kimberly Soby (University of Connecticut) and Shannon Rose McAuliffe (Emerson College)
(Do Not) Forget My Fate: Addressing Violence, Trauma, and Oppression in Operatic Texts and their Stagings
Session 4b (Dance Studio 1) Narratives of Resistance Across Media
Session Chair: Mary Natvig (Bowling Green State University)
Ryan Lambe (Eckerd College)
A Battle Cry for Queer Worlds: Voice, Music, and Sound in Live-Action Roleplay
Per Broman (Bowling Green State University)
Beyond Bloodshed: Unveiling Feminist Narratives Through Music in the Last of Us Part II
Danielle Stoebe (Boston University)*
Killing the “Bad Guy”: Updating Anti-Patriarchal Contemporary Murder Ballads and Performative Politics of the Otherwise
11:00 – 12:30
Session 5a (Watkins) Women Crafting Compositions
Session Chair: Christian Matijas-Mecca (University of Michigan)
Emily Abrams Ansari (Western University, Canada)
Music as Craftivism: The Feminist Minimalism and Serialism of Ann Southam
Lisa Beebe (Cosumnes River College)
Shaping New Sounds: Women Composers in the Vietnamese Diaspora
Sara Speller (Harvard University)
Privilege in scattered archives: Wealth, labor, and the Black elite in Margaret Bonds’ Diary of a Divorcée
Session 5b (Dance Studio 1) Queering the Song, Embodying the Story: A Lecture-Recital of Queer Stories and Traditional Songs from India and Writing Letters of Love (PERFORMANCE/WORKSHOP)
Daniele Shlomit Sofer (University of Dayton)
Bala Raghavan (UC Santa Cruz)
Lunch Break
Have lunch outside and enjoy a concert at the Lurie Carillon
12:30 – 1:45
Invitation to tour the Lurie Carillon Tower
Note: Visitors subject to acrophobia are advised to take the elevator to Level 2 only
1:00 – 1:30
Concert by carillon students of Tiffany Ng (University of Michigan) with a program curated by Eric Whitmer (University of Michigan)
Note: Any visitors entering the bell tower during the concert are encouraged to wear earplugs
2:00 – 3:30
Session 6a (Watkins) Interrogating Conservative Ideologies
Session Chair: Kim Francis (University of Guelph)
Samuel Dorf (University of Dayton)
A Fascist’s Guide to Music
Matthew Anderson (University of Kansas)
From Opulence to Opposition: Hip Hop’s Dynamic Discourse on Donald Trump
Anneli Loepp Thiessen (University of Ottawa)*
From Inclusion to Ordination: Constructing an Oral History of Women's Experiences in the Christian Music Industry
Session 6b (Dance Studio 1) Voicing Trans/Queer Musical Dialogues (PANEL, ends at 4:00)
Session Chair: Poe Allphin (CUNY Graduate Centre)
Poe Allphin (CUNY Graduate Centre)
“This is your voice on T”: Disabling Notions of the Transmasculine Bodyvoice”
Nicholas Borgia-Tran (CUNY Graduate Centre)
Co-Creation: Proliferating Bodies in Contemporary Music Composition Pedagogy
Dan Arthur Levy (McGill University)
“I Don’t Know What to Do with All This Privilege”: Listening with the Critically Sincere Trans(masculine) Singer-Songwriter
Alejandrina M. Medina (UC San Diego)
Trans/form: Objectless Critique and the Question of 'trans' Music
4:00 – 5:30
Session 7a (Watkins) Sounding Bodily Autonomy
Session Chair: Tiffany Ng (University of Michigan)
Hannah Strong (University of Pittsburgh)
Megan Thee Stallion Weaponizes Birth Control in Support of Bodily Autonomy
Jessica Sipe (Yale University)
Menstruation, Voice, and the Politics of Reproductive Healthcare
Nicol Hammond (UC Santa Cruz)
Justice! Justice! Gone Gone Gone: Music About Rape in South Africa
Session 7b (Dance Studio 1) Feminist Politics and Genre
Session Chair: Maureen Mahon (New York University)
Lauren Shepherd (Columbia University)*
Reconceiving Genre: Asian American Women in Post-Millennial Rock
Lori Burns and Patrick Armstrong (University of Ottawa)*
Gender, Politics, and Urgency in the Work of Female Metal Vocalists
Kelsey Klotz (University of Maryland, College Park)
Snapshot of Jazz Patriarchy: Esperanza Spalding’s “Girl Talk”
6:30 – 9:00
FT&M17 EVENING RECEPTION
Vandenberg Room, Michigan League
Banquet Buffet and Non-Alcoholic Drinks Included with Registration
Cash Bar
Saturday, June 22
9:00 – 10:30
Session 8 (Watkins) The Subversive Potential of Queer Pop
Session Chair: Elliott H. Powell (University of Minnesota)
Hiro Cho (University of Chicago)
Queering Race: “Your Best American Girl” and Mitski’s Mimetic Subversion
Dan DiPiero (University of Missouri, Kansas City)
Infinite Worlds: Vagabon’s Queer Black Feminism
Kelly Hoppenjans (University of Michigan)
“Doing Something Unholy:” Mainstreaming Queer Subculture on TikTok
11:00–1:00
Session 9 (Dance Studio 1) PANEL: Roots & Branches: Expanding Feminist Approaches to Music Theory
Moderator: Dean Hubbs (University of Michigan)
Participants: Orit Hilewicz (Indiana University), Rachel Lumsden (Florida State University), Vivian Luong (University of Oklahoma), Maeve Sterbenz (Smith College)
Respondents: Marion Guck (University of Michigan), Marianne Kielian-Gilbert (Indiana University)
Lunch Break
2:00 – 2:45
Business Meeting (Britton)
3:00 – 4:30
CONCERT
Walgreen Recital Hall
Ellen Rowe Octet, “Momentum : Portraits of Women in Motion”
Featuring: Melissa Gardner (trombone), Marion Hayden (bass), Nadje Noordhuis (trumpet), Lisa Parrott (alto), Tina Raymond (drums), Janelle Reichman (clarinet, tenor sax), Ellen Rowe (piano), and Kayliegh Wilder (baritone sax).
Virtual participation indicated with asterisk (*)
The FT&M Programme Committee
Lauron Kehrer (Western Michigan University) (chair)
Angelina Gibson (University of Michigan) (asst. to the chair)
Christopher Cayari (Purdue University)
Leah Claiborne (University of the District of Columbia)
Kate Galloway (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
Vivian Luong (University of Oklahoma)
Local Organizing Committee
Karen Fournier (Chair)
Christi-Anne Castro
Roshanne Etezady
Dean Hubbs
Diane Oliva
Carlos Rodriguez
Courtney Snyder-Ng
The Feminist Theory & Music conference was made possible by funding from:
The University of Michigan’s Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWG)
The U-M Office of the VP-Research (OVPR);
The SMTD Dean’s Discretionary Fund;
The SMTD Office for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)
