AMS Newsletter February 2014
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AMS NEWSLETTER THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY CONSTITUENT MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN COUNCIL OF LEARNED SOCIETIES VOLUME XLIV, NUMBER 1 February 2014 ISSN 0402-012X AMS Milwaukee 2014: Not Just 2013 Annual Beer, Brats, and Cheese Meeting: Pittsburgh AMS Milwaukee 2014 venues right in the downtown area, includ- The seventy-ninth Annual Meeting of the 6–9 November ing the Marcus Center for the Performing American Musicological Society took place www.ams-net.org/milwaukee Arts, home of the Milwaukee Symphony, the 7–10 November among the bridges, rivers, Florentine Opera, and the Milwaukee Bal- and hills of Pittsburgh’s Golden Triangle. Members of the AMS and the SMT will let. Pabst Theatre and the nearby Riverside The program was packed to the gills, with converge on Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in No- Theatre are home to regular series and the an average of seven concurrent scholarly ses- vember for their annual meetings. Situated Milwaukee Repertory Company. The large sions plus numerous meetings by the Soci- on the west shore of Lake Michigan about Milwaukee Theatre hosts roadshows. The ety’s committees, study groups, and editorial ninety miles north of Chicago, Milwaukee is downtown also boasts two arenas hosting boards, as well as lectures and recitals select- known as the Cream City not because Wis- sporting events and touring acts. The Broad- ed by the Performance Committee. Papers consin is America’s Dairyland, but because way Theatre presents smaller events, includ- and sessions spanned the entire range of the of the ubiquity of cream-colored brick used ing local theater companies and the Skylight field, from the origins of Christian chant to in the city’s oldest buildings. Sure, it is well Musical Theatre series. the recent media technology of television op- known for its place in the history of brewing, Milwaukee is also proud of its public art era and Auto-Tune. Long-standing debates but today Milwaukee is a vibrant metropoli- and architecture. The August 2013 AMS over the interpretation of Renaissance print tan area of over a million, with a thriving arts Newsletter displayed a photo of the lake front collections, eighteenth-century theories of and culture scene. dominated by the Quadracci Pavilion of the rhetoric, the Italian Risorgimento, and the The conference hotel is the historic down- Milwaukee Art Museum, designed by San- politics of Soviet music were reconsidered town Hilton (originally opened as the tiago Calatrava. Just south of the museum with fresh evidence. The program showed Schroeder Hotel in 1927), and sessions will sits Discovery World, part of the Milwaukee notable growth in emergent fields, drawing also take place in the convention center Public Museum, whose main building is on on ecocriticism, film studies, sound stud- across the street. There are a plethora of arts the west side of downtown near the conven- ies, disability studies, and posthumanities. tion center. South along the lake front is also Two full sessions launched compelling new In This Issue… Maier Festival grounds, home of Summer- historical work on music as an element of fest, the world’s largest music festival. Head- international diplomacy. Other alternative- President’s Message ...............2 ing east on Wisconsin Avenue from the lake, format sessions began enterprising new dis- President-Elect Ellen T. Harris ......3 you will pass the Wisconsin Gas building, cussions on the cultural history of musical Textual Scholarship and Musicology ..4 atop of which sits a weather beacon whose instruments and on the interplay of sound, Treasurer’s Message ...............4 color or flicker gives the forecast. Further music, and affect in modernity. This meeting What I Do in Musicology ..........5 100 also debuted the Poster Session, a new type The IMS in Pittsburgh ............5 on, East Wisconsin Avenue was built as of presentation that we hope to see more of Awards, Prizes, Honors ............6 an invocation of the old Pabst Tower, which Executive Director’s Message ......10 used to sit on the site. As you cross the river in the future to facilitate interactive and mul- News from the AMS Board .......10 you will notice Mark Di Suvero’s Sunburst timedia-based research (they are solicited in 2014 AMS-Sponsored Lectures ......... 11 forming an eye through which you can see the Call for Papers). The exceptionally AMS Elections 2014 .............12 Calatrava’s brise solei. We hope to arrange a competitive nature of our selection process, Committee & Study Group News .. 15 city tour during the meeting for those inter- with an acceptance rate of approximately News Briefs ...................19 ested in learning more about these artworks. thirty percent, continues to hold the confer- CFPs, Conferences ..............20 On the west side of downtown sits the ence at its high level of quality, and the many Papers Read at Chapter Meetings ...21 central branch of the Milwaukee Public Li- impressive debuts by advanced students and Legacy Gifts ...................28 brary, home to a collection of 10,000 items recent PhDs keep pushing the standards ever Obituaries ....................29 of sheet music dating from 1850. Our host higher. Financial Summary 2013 ..........30 continued on page continued on page President’s Message: Addressing a National Issue I want to begin by thanking several people. study by the American Federation of Teachers What can we as a relatively small scholarly First, a very special thanks to the Pittsburgh (March 2010) found that the largest segment society do? Advice and practical suggestions Local Arrangements committee: Matthew (over forty percent) of contingent faculty had have appeared this fall in a pair of blog postings Baumer (chair), Benjamin Binder, James Cas- been employed at the same institution for from Elizabeth Keenan, a recent PhD in eth- saro, Robert Fallon, Rachel Mundy, Anna over ten years, many for over twenty (www. nomusicology from Columbia University (she Nisnevich, Deane Root, Mariana Whitmer, aft.org/pdfs/highered/aa_partimefaculty0310. speaks to tenured departmental colleagues; and Emily Zazulia. You did a fantastic job. pdf). In their measure of job satisfaction, the badcoverversion.wordpress.com/2013/10/30/ Second, many thanks to two who have been outcomes were almost all positive. The scores how-to-be-a-tenured-ally/), and also in a of enormous help to me in my first year of were lowest at public four-year institutions, Chronicle article by James M. Lang, associate presiding: my predecessor, Anne Walters Rob- but even then, fifty percent reported being professor of English at Assumption College ertson, and our long-serving secretary, Pamela very or mainly satisfied with their jobs. Also (chronicle.com/article/The-Loraxs-Dilem- Starr. Getting to work closely with you has noteworthy, the AAUP reported in 2009 that ma/143243/). His three recommendations are: been a great pleasure. I will miss you! two-thirds of contingent faculty don’t want 1) become someone’s ally or mentor; 2) open My topic this time is one of ever-growing full-time employment; there is doubtless over- committee memberships to adjuncts; and 3) importance: how we might better support lap here with the even larger percentage with- offer grants for work-related travel. Currently, our colleagues who are contingent or adjunct out a PhD or similar advanced degree (www. the AMS is already doing the latter two of faculty members. Not a week goes by now aaup.org/article/who-are-part-time-faculty). these, and has been for some time. without multiple articles and opinion pieces A comparable study appeared in 2010 by Among further possible steps, I offer the discussing the dependence of today’s universi- the Coalition on the Academic Workforce following: ties on adjunct instructors, increasingly called (CAW), a group of twenty-seven scholarly Those of us who have tenure or tenure- contingent faculty. It has become one of the societies, higher education associations, and track jobs can become more informed about favorite recurring themes in the pages of the faculty organizations that seeks, among other the conditions of adjunct faculty, not just (or Chronicle of Higher Education (right up there goals, to deal with the problems of all faculty, even primarily) in musicology, at our own with MOOCs). universities; those of us in administrative po- While statistics vary widely according to the How can we support those who are sitions can seek common cause with other source, there is no questioning the extent of administrators. the growth in academic jobs that are not ten- contingent or adjunct faculty? The AMS Committee on Membership ure track. Because the numbers of tenure-track and Professional Development (CMPD) has faculty have remained more or less constant including those “serving full- and part-time begun to consider this issue and will make since the 1970s, the conclusion is inescap- off the tenure track” (academicworkforce.org/ recommendations to the Society. Among able that the huge increase in the numbers of CAW_portrait_2012.pdf ). Along with much possible tasks are 1) to explore how we might students since then has been accommodated data about wages, course loads, years of teach- establish a mentor program, and 2) to review by hiring ever greater numbers of contingent ing, and the like, the findings include the fact the efficacy of our travel grant programs (espe- faculty (www.mindingthecampus.com/origi- that “part-time faculty members represent the cially the one administered by the CMPD) as nals/2009/06/review_of_john_c_cross.html). largest and fastest-growing segment of the it applies to contingent faculty. According to the American Association of postsecondary instructional workforce,” and, The AMS has joined CAW, and I have ap- University Professors (AAUP), academia has unsurprisingly, that “professional support for pointed Kendra Preston Leonard, an indepen- gone from having nearly sixty percent of fac- part-time faculty members’ work outside the dent scholar and CMPD member, as AMS ulty tenured or tenure track and thirty percent classroom and inclusion in academic decision liaison to it.