Mark Slobin, the Richard K. Winslow Professor of Music, lectures on "Jewish Folk Music" during the Ethnomusicology and Global Culture Summer Institute. The two-week-long institute, held June 20-July 1, is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Society for Ethnomusicology and the Wesleyan Music Department.
The National Endowment for the Humanities is supporting 25 summer scholars at the institute, including Kwame Harrison, associate professor of sociology and Africana studies at Virginia Tech. Harrison teaches classes on popular music, black aesthetics and cultural anthropology. He is a founding member of the Bay Area underground hip hop group Forest Fires Collective and edits the Journal of Popular Music Studies.The summer scholars and faculty pose for a group photo on June 29.Summer scholar Rebekah Moore is a doctoral candidate in ethnomusicology at Indiana University. She explores music-related practices, such as rehearsals, performances, recording sessions, album production, promotion, and tours as the conduits by which core ideals of social and musical difference are created and shared in Bali, Indonesia. Pictured in the background is summer scholar Daniel Margolies, a professor of history at Virginia Wesleyan College. His research examines globalization and empire, legal and musical spatiality, migrant transnationalism, and sustainability in conjunto, Appalachian, Cajun and Mongolian music.Su Zheng, associate professor of music at Wesleyan, specializes in gender and music, music in Asian America, and traditional and contemporary music of East Asia. She lectured on Asian American music and culture on June 21.Eric Charry, associate professor of music, is the summer institute's director. Charry specializes in music of West Africa, improvisation, jazz and contemporary popular music. On June 21, he spoke about mande music, which is traditional and modern music of the Maninka and Mandinka of Western Africa. Charry's book, Mande Music, is published by the University of Chicago Press.Summer scholars K. Denea Stewart-Shaheed, Max Katz and Kimasi Browne enjoy a discussion on the didjeridu. University Professor of Music Sumarsam teaches a gamelan workshop June 22.Summer scholar Jennifer Kyker participates in the gamelan workshop. Summer scholar Kathleen Costello is an assistant professor of modern languages and cultures at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, N.Y. Her current research examines popular music produced in Spain and the role of an Afro-Caribbean musical aesthetic in the construction of transnational Hispanic identity. The NEH summer scholars must deliver an oral presentation at the conclusion of the institute, which will be based on their research/pedagogical projects formulated over the course of the two weeks. (Photos by Olivia Drake)Summer scholar Kathleen Higgins.
For more information on the conference click here.
Olivia Drake
Mike Mavredakis
Editorial Staff