The Conference Scene: Students and faculty have already contributed to a variety of conferences this summer.
MA student Cody Norling gave a paper at the Fourth Annual Midwest History Conference titled “‘R.Hutchinson, Iowa City’: A Case of Musical Cultivation in Nineteenth Century Iowa.” It was reportedly the largest gathering of Midwest historians since the 1930s!
MA student Andrew Tubbs presented research related to his thesis at the annual Song, Stage and Screen conference at UCLA. His paper was titled “Sumpin’ Wrong Inside Him: Ethnicity, Disability, and Eugenics in Rodgers’ and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!”
Both Ph.D. candidate Megan Small and Dr. Nathan Platte attended the annual Music and the Moving Image conference at New York University. Megan presented a paper titled “Animal Sounds for Human Audiences: The Music of Koneko Monogatari and The Adventures of Milo and Otis.” Dr. Platte chaired multiple panels and gave a paper on jazz and constructions of authenticity in the capital punishment film, I Want to Live!
New Teaching Opportunities
During the spring 2018 semester, Ph.D. candidate Kelsey McGinnis taught a new course, “Topics in Human Rights: Archives and Activism,” as part of the Provost’s Global Forum and Obermann Humanities Symposium, “Against Amnesia: Archives, Evidence, and Social Justice.”
The course, designed for undergraduate students from all majors and programs of study, introduced students to physical and digital archives and to archivists, activists, and scholars who utilize archival material to promote social justice locally and globally. Kelsey also curated a collection of sources related to archival research and social justice, which can be found here. Kelsey’s participation and teaching was supported by a HASTAC Fellowship awarded by the UI Obermann Center for Advanced Studies.
Other students and alumni are preparing new courses for the fall. Ph.D. candidate Sarah Lucas will work as a music history instructor at Drake University for the 2018-19 academic year. Ph.D. candidate Michele Aichele will teach music history courses at Texas A&M University and the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio. Dr. Jessica Kizzire (UI 2017) will start a new teaching appointment at the University of New Haven.
Public Musicology
Dr. Marian Wilson Kimber’s research on (and performance of) elocutionists and their music was recently featured in an interview with Iowa Public Radio host Barney Sherman.