"Oh Say, Can You Really See?" Science Fiction, Sound Painting, and Social Subtext in Jimi Hendrix’s "1983..."Will Fulton, CUNY Graduate Center
11:00 a.m.–12:15 a.m.
Jefferson Williams Lounge, Brooklyn College Student Center

Jimi Hendrix's innovative use of recording technology in Electric Ladyland paved the way for a generation of sonic exploration in rock music. The album's programmatic suite "1983...(a Merman I Should Turn To Be)," which chronicles an escape from the dystopian earth’s surface for a better life in Atlantis, was written and recorded weeks after Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination in 1968. In Hendrix’s hands the recording process is itself an electro-acoustic performance of a work that represents both 1960s science fiction escapism and social commentary. Will Fulton is a doctoral student in musicology at the Graduate Center, CUNY, and teaches at Brooklyn College.

Our Modest Witness: John Cage's Modernism Benjamin Piekut, Cornell University
2:15–3:30 p.m.
Bedford Lounge, Brooklyn College Student Center

John Cage believed his music could, like nature itself, would be governed by the laws of chance. Though chance might lead to unforeseen futures, as Cage's surrogate for the category of nature, chance was in fact a route toward certainty, and could provide him with a foundation on which to base the authority of his aesthetic position. This quest for certainty marks Cage as a modern figure, when "modern" is defined by the distinction between an objective, apolitical nature and a subjective, political society. Benjamin Piekut is Assistant Professor of Musicology at Cornell University.

Gone to the Country: The New Lost City Ramblers and the Folk Music Revival Book Launch Presentation by Ray Allen Live Old-time Mountain Music by the Dust Busters and John Cohen
2:15 pm
Woody Tanger Auditorium, Brooklyn College

The New Lost City Ramblers were pioneers in the old-time music revival that paral- leled the great folk music boom of the 1960s. In Gone to the Country: The New Lost City Ramblers and the Folk Music Revival, (University of Illinois Press, 2010), Ray Allen examines the Ramblers’ efforts to recreate “authentic” old-time mountain mu- sic at a time when the folk music scene was dominated by commercial singers and political singer/songwriters. Ray Allen holds a Tow Professorship at Brooklyn College where he teaches courses in American music and American studies. The Dust Busters are a (young) old-time string band based in Brooklyn, NY. They met while playing with folk music legends John Cohen of the New Lost City Ramblers and Peter Stampfel of the Holy Modal Rounders. John Cohen is a founding member of the New Lost City Ramblers, a Professor of Art emeritus at SUNY Purchase, and a critically acclaimed photographer and documentary film maker.

Riot Grrrl Is Dead. Long Live Riot Grrrl: Political Activism, Nostalgia, and Historiography Elizabeth K. Keenan, Fordham University
2:15 pm
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.

"Remove the Records from Texas": Parsing Online Archives David Grubbs, Conservatory of Music, Brooklyn College
2:15 pm
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 programs in Performance and Interactive Media Arts (PIMA). He has released eleven solo albums, and is completing a book titled Records Ruin the Landscape: John Cage, The Sixties, and Sound Recording (Duke University Press, forthcoming).

Milton Babbitt, Time, and Memory Anton Vishio, Steinhardt School, New York University
2:15 pm
State Lounge, Brooklyn College Student Center

A reflection on one of America's foremost composers, who passed away in January of 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.

Terror Chords and Jungle Drums: Music in the Horror Film Jordan Stokes, The Graduate Century, CUNY
2:15 pm
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.

Joan Baez at Spring Hill College: A Study of Intersecting Histories Stephen Kelly, Carleton College
2:15 pm
Alumni Lounge, Brooklyn College Student Center

On 7 May 1963, Joan Baez gave a concert at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama. This might seem an unremarkable event. After all, Baez performed on many college campuses, and this event evokes no stirring memories in the public mind. However, this performance, occurring the day after Baez attended the Birmingham Civil Rights demonstrations, takes on significance when viewed from the intersection of social, musical, institutional, and personal histories. Stephen Kelly is Dye Family Professor of Music at Carleton College. He received his M.A. from Rutgers University, his Ph.D. from Ohio State University, has been a Fulbright Scholar, and has published editions of Niccolò da Perugia's music.

The DJ Hangs Himself? Authenticity in the Face of Extinction Peter J. Vasconcellos, CUNY Graduate Center
1:00 pm
Alumni Lounge, Brooklyn College Student Center

Two turntables, a mixer, and some crates full of records: the DJ's tools have barely changed since the late 1970s. But in recent years, new playback technology has stormed the market. The crates of records stay home while the modern DJ needs little more than a laptop. DJ software was heralded as a blessing, but is it? Startup costs for new DJs have dropped sharply and deejaying techniques have become push-button simple. What happens to the art of deejaying when "everyone's a DJ"? This talk discusses the effects of a flooded market and the defiant resurgence of the "vinyl-only" DJ. Live deejaying will be a part of this talk. Peter J. Vasconcellos is a Ph.D. candidate in ethnomusicology at the CUNY Graduate Center, a lecturer at Brooklyn College, and a DJ.

The Harlem Renaissance is the project's symbolic point of departure, in that the literary and jazz-infused Harlem era of the early-20th century finds a powerful counterpoint in Brooklyn of the mid- to late-20th century to the present. In this era, Brooklyn has evolved as a site of diverse Black cultures: African American, Afro-Caribbean, and West African diasporic.

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