Spring 2011
March 21
Riot Grrrl Is Dead. Long Live Riot Grrrl: Political Activism, Nostalgia, and Historiography
Elizabeth K. Keenan, Fordham University
State Lounge, Brooklyn College Student Center
Drawing on José Esteban Muñoz's reflections on constructing utopias through nostalgic framings of the past, this presentation questions the political nature of remembering Riot Grrrl today and addresses the juncture where the now-popular production of 1990s nostalgia intersects with the important project of feminist historiography of the Third Wave. Elizabeth K. Keenan completed her doctorate in ethnomusicology at Columbia University in 2008 and is on the music faculty at Fordham University. She recently won the Wong Tolbert Prize from the Society for Ethnomusicology.
March 28
"Remove the Records from Texas": Parsing Online Archives
David Grubbs, Conservatory of Music, Brooklyn College
Woody Tanger Auditorium, Brooklyn College Library
This presentation offers a taxonomy of online archives of experimental music, and considers issues of documentation, canon formation and the rewriting of history in many ways that could not have been foreseen by the musicians and artists whose recordings are being made accessible as never before. David Grubbs is associate professor in the Conservatory of Music of Brooklyn College and director of the graduate program in Performance and Interactive Media Arts (PIMA). He has released 11 solo albums and is completing a book titled Records Ruin the Landscape: John Cage, The Sixties, and Sound Recording (Duke University Press, forthcoming).
April 5
The East Cultural and Educational Center: A Jazz Celebration Featuring the Charles Tolliver Quartet and Salim Washington and the Brooklyn College Jazz Ensemble
Pre-concert talk with Africana studies scholar W.S. Tkweme and East founding members Jitu Weusi, Basir Mchawi and Nana Carmen Ashhurst
Studio 312, Roosevelt Hall
Originally located at 10 Claver Place in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, The East Cultural and Educational Center had its roots in the Black Nationalist and the Black Arts movements of the late 1960s and 1970s. In the 16 years of its existence, The East hosted a staggering array of jazz talent as part of its Black Experience in Sound series. Pharaoah Sanders, Freddie Hubbard, Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, McCoy Tyner, Sun Ra, Hugh Masekela, Betty Carter, James Spaulding and Charles Tolliver were among the jazz legends that appeared at The East.
Charles Tolliver and the Brooklyn College Jazz ensemble will present a tribute to the music of The East and the Black Arts Movement.
April 11
Milton Babbitt, Time, and Memory
Anton Vishio, Steinhardt School, New York University
State Lounge, Brooklyn College Student Center
A reflection on one of America's foremost composers, who passed away in January 2011. Anton Vishio is assistant professor of music and music professions at NYU's Steinhardt School, a music theorist, a pianist and composer interested in exploring the problems and possibilities of text setting. He studies different aspects of music of the past century, especially the ways in which tonality continued to survive long after its supposed dissolution, and the varied conceptions of temporal experience manifested in musical works since 1945.
May 9
Terror Chords and Jungle Drums: Music in the Horror Film
Jordan Stokes, CUNY Graduate Center
State Lounge, Brooklyn College Student Center
A common technique in horror film scoring is the use of ethnic music to represent the monstrous Other, a practice with obvious and uncomfortable ideological connotations. The musical Other in 1930s–40s Hollywood zombie films such as White Zombie, King of the Zombies, and I Walked With a Zombie are examined, arguing that the use of music in these films is more complex and interesting—on both artistic and ideological levels—than their lurid names and generally shoestring budgets would suggest. Jordan Stokes is a chancellor's fellow at the CUNY Graduate Center whose research focuses on the intersection of film music and film genre.
