Music & Disability at AMS-SMT 2023

(This post is available in document form.) 
​
The following is a collection of music and disability-related sessions at the joint meeting of the American Musicological Society and the Society of Music Theory, taking place in Denver, CO from November 9–12, 2023. 
Included are sessions directly sponsored by the study group, independently-organized sessions, and sessions from both societies.
We hope to see you there!

---

PRECONFERENCE OPPORTUNITIES

Wednesday, November 8
3:00pm–4:30pm 
The Mendelssohn Network: Pre-AMS Fringe Conference
Lamont School of Music, University of Denver

​SESSION 1: ANALYSIS AND PRACTICE  
Chair: Joe Davies   

• Making Noise: Musical activism & Fanny Hensel’s Lieder Repertoire - Tim Parker-Langston (Royal Opera House; Goldsmiths, University of London)
• Fanny Hensel, Felix Mendelssohn, and Histories of Plagal Disability  - Tekla Babyak (Independent Scholar)
• Thematic Reprise in Hensel’s Ternary Form Instrumental Music - Ryan McClelland (University of Toronto)​

Thursday, November 9

4:00pm–5:30pm - Thursday, November 9, 2023 
Music and Disability (SMT)
​Session Chair: Tekla Babyak, Disabled Independent Scholar

• Representations of Stuttering in Popular Song from 1965 to Present and the Rhythmic Implications - Kristi Hardman, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
• Understanding through Unintelligibility: A Close Reading of Neil Young’s Voice in Trans (1982) - Gerardo Lopez, The Ohio State University
• Movement as Music in Signed Song: Analyzing Rosa Lee Timm’s “River Song” - Anabel Maler, University of British Columbia

8:00pm–10:00pm - Thursday, November 9, 2023
Beyond the Staff: Notation Pedagogies and Practices
Sponsored by the AMS Music Notation, Inscription, and Visualization Study Group

• Keynote - Dr. Olufunmilayo Arewa, ​​Murray H. Shusterman Professor of Transactional and Business Law at Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 
• Notation, Context & Representation - Olufunmilayo B. Arewa, Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University
• Pedagogy through Performance: Shōga and Notation in Gagaku Music Theory - Toru Momii, Harvard University
• Inscribing Music in the Body: How Sign Language Reimagines Embodied Musicality - Anabel Maler, University of British Columbia
• Black American Music and the Ambivalence of Notation - Jonathan A. Gómez, University of Southern California

---

Friday, November 10

 12:30pm–2:30pm - Friday, November 10, 2023

• AMS Music and Disability Study Group Business Meeting
• SMT Committee on Disability & Accessibility Brown Bag Lunch

Who can come?
Anyone part of AMS or SMT with an interest in studying music and disability. Open to all attendees. Choose the gathering of your respective society. You are welcome!

8:00pm–10:00pm - Friday, November 10, 2023
Disability Identity in Music Scholarship
Sponsored by the AMS Music and Disability Study Group (see the session call)

Recordings of presentations and session are now available!

• Ethnography Through All Of Our Bodies: Reconsidering Methodology through Disability Expertise - Emily Williams Roberts, University of Chicago
• I got a right to be Mad: Madness in Beyoncé’s Lemonade - Samar Johnson, University of Kentucky
• Perspective - Molly Joyce, University of Virginia
• Inclusive Music Workshops - Diane Kolin, York University
• An Initial Exploration of Autistic, Synesthetic Queer Listening - Steph Ban, Independent Scholar
• You Want Us to do What? : Analysing the Disability Identity in Music Scholarship Call for Papers - Heather Strohschein (Bowling Green State University), Mags Smith and  Linda Yates (Independent Researchers)
• Crip-Punk! Exploring Disability and Liberation Through Music - Chris Wylie

---

Saturday, November 11

9:00am–12:15pm, Saturday, November 11, 2023 
The SMT Committee on Disability and Accessibility Session
Sponsored by the SMT Committee on Disability and Accessibility Session
Chair: David Easley (Oklahoma City University)
Discussants: Tekla Babyak (Independent Scholar, Davis, CA), Kate Pukinskis (Carnegie Mellon), Toby Rush (University of Dayton), Kristen Wallentinsen (Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey)

The SMT Disability and Accessibility Committee aims to provide a space for advocacy, assess current society practices with regard to accessibilities, and to showcase society members whose work engages with those goals. In this session, we feature presentations that demonstrate these important aspects of our committee. Music and Disability studies continue to grow and in the first part of our session, we will highlight scholarship devoted to this field. In the second part of our session, the focus will turn towards increasing accessibility for students in the classroom as well as the practice room.
The session will feature a mix of standard talks, lightning talks, as well as breakout sessions, each of which will include ample time for questions and further discussion.

• Joni Mitchell and the Poetics of Human Imperfection - Timothy Koozin, University of Houston
• Learning from misrepresentations of autism in music theory disability studies to improve scholarship and increase understanding of autism spectrum disorders - Kate McDonald, Western University
• Rethinking the Music Theory Classroom through the Lens of Physical Disability - Megh Snelling, The Pennsylvania State University School of Music
• Lost in Transcription? Captioning Issues for Music and Sound in Film and Television, A Presentation with Breakout Discussions - James Deaville, Carleton University

9:00am–10:30am - Saturday, November 11, 2023
​Disability and Affordance in Popular Music (AMS)
Session Chair: Christa Bentley

• “Lady Gaga Hits Rock Bottom!”: The Embodied Crisis of Pop Performance - Katelyn Hearfield, University of Pennsylvania,
• Reconstructing Wheelchair-using Sexual Women: Ali Stroker, Oklahoma!, and the Politics of Visibility in Music Performance - Echo Lee Davidson, University of Pittsburgh
• The Affordances of a Pegleg: Disablist Music-Making and (A)symmetry in Rhythm Tap Dance - Rachel Gain, Yale University

12:30pm–2:00pm - Saturday, November 11, 2023 
Overcoming Barriers, Using Assets as ADHD Scholars in Musicology (AMS)
Panel and Discussion
Peter Lamothe (Belmont University), Stephanie Frakes (University of Manitoba), Jeannette D. Jones (Boston, MA)

Resource Document and Recording of this session are now available!

​
7:30–9:00pm, Saturday, November 11, 2023 
Special Seminar: Intersections between age and disability
Sponsored by the SMT Disability and Music Special Interest Group
​led by Mike Kinney and Joe Straus

---

Sunday, November 12

Sunday, November 12, 2023 - 9:00am - 10:30am
Blindness and Musical Identity (AMS)
Session Chair: Jeannette D. Jones, Boston, MA

• Belisario’s Blindness: The Disabling of Operatic Conventions - Christina Colanduoni, University of Chicago
• Performing blindness and the anxiety of visuality in the career of Maria Theresia von Paradis - Christopher Parton, Princeton University
• Touching Melodies: Tactile Notation at the Vienna Institute for the Blind - Adeline Mueller, Mount Holyoke College​​

9:00am–10:30am - Sunday, November 12, 2023 
Revisiting the 2017 Musicology Now "Open Letter to AMS Members on the State of the Academic Job Market:" Strategies for Implementation
Organized by the AMS Committee on Career-Related Issues
​

• Chair(s): Jennifer Saltzstein (University of Oklahoma), Brandi Neal (Virginia Commonwealth University)
• Presenter(s): William Cheng (Dartmouth College), Alexander Rehding (Harvard University), Marysol Quevedo (University of Miami), Samantha Bassler (New York University)