Abstract: The Summer 2020 controversy over Vol. 12 of the Journal of Schenkerian Studies has changed the course of American music theory in ways not seen in decades, if ever. As the figure at the eye of this storm, I have a unique perspective on the antiblackness that drove Vol. 12. In this talk I relate three case studies on music theory’s antiblackness in hopes of driving a new narrative on antiracism in the field, a field that remains stubbornly resistant to antiracist and antisexist change, a field that seems willing to risk its very existence in clinging to twentieth-century norms that are, two decades into the twenty-first, at once undesirable and unsustainable.

For more information, visit:

https://music.columbia.edu/events/colloquium-with-prof-philip-ewell-hunter-college-of-the-city-university-of-new-york