Session theme: “Stories from the Frontlines”
(Sunday, November 8, 2020, online from 2:00 – 3:15 pm, Central Time)
Issues pertaining to class in higher education today remain as pervasive as ever—whether it be in connections between poverty and lack of access to educational resources, cost of living issues faced by those with student debts, the professional and intellectual challenges faced by scholars in positions of under- or contingent employment, and so on. Moreover, even though people of color are affected disproportionately by class-related issues, this is a phenomenon that affects everyone in some fashion.
In this light, the Committee on Race and Ethnicity is sponsoring a session on issues at the intersection of race and class at the 2020 virtual meeting of the Society for Music Theory and the American Musicological Society. As evident in its title, “Stories from the Frontlines,” this session is meant to give scholars who have personally experienced or addressed issues regarding class inequality, and its intersection with race, a chance to share their stories with the music theory community. The session will feature such stories by several speakers, and also Q&As with these speakers, as detailed below:
Session description
All of the talks below (except the one by Sumanth Gopinath) will be available on pre-recorded video prior to the session, for asynchronous viewing. The first four will be live-streamed at the beginning of the session, followed by a real-time presentation by Gopinath.
Adem Merter Birson (Hofstra University): “Stifling Sameness: Hardships of Immigration, Parenthood, and Being Non-White Contingent Faculty”
Catrina Kim (University of North Carolina at Greensboro): “Assessing My Market Value: One Perspective on Contingent Labor in Music Theory”
Paula Grissom (Spelman College): “(Re)Visioning Race and Gender in Music Theory and Composition”
Noé Dinnerstein (John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York): “Negotiating and Nurturing Ethnicity, Social Justice, Stress, and Trauma, pre- and post-COVID, in an Urban Commuter College”
Sumanth Gopinath (University of Minnesota): “A Perspective from the Academic Labor Union Movement”
Anna Nelson (University of Michigan): “Fighting for Class Equality Through the Power of Collective Bargaining: Toward Livable Working Conditions for Graduate Students in the Performing Arts”
Michael Berry (University of Washington): “Make Sure Your Own Mask is Secure before Assisting Others: Contingent Faculty as Care Workers”
Reba Wissner (Columbus State University): “Extreme Adjuncting: When Contingent Labor Becomes the Norm”
Patricia Hall (University of Michigan): “Navigating Academia, Single-Parenthood, and First-Gen Experiences”
After the presentations, there will be a 25-minute Q&A between the speakers and the audience.
