IMPORTANT
CURRENTS: Courtney Hobson (Dresher)-Lindsay Johnson (Music)
Humanities Work Now
Monday, April 29, 2024 · 12 - 1 PM
The Dresher Center’s CURRENTS: Humanities Work Now lunchtime series showcases exciting new faculty work in the humanities in a dynamic and inter-disciplinary setting.
Lunch will be served at 11:30am.
Daughter of the Stars: One Historian's Familial Journey through the Archives
Courtney C. Hobson, Program Manager, Dresher Center for the Humanities
Courtney C. Hobson, Program Manager, Dresher Center for the Humanities
Inspired by Sadiya Hartman's Lose Your Mother, Courtney Hobson has mined the archives and discovered ancestors in the margins: a manumission from The First Emancipator; enslavement by a prominent family in colonial Williamsburg; and enlistment in the 51st Defense Battalion, the first African American unit in the Marine Corps. In this presentation, Hobson will discuss what she has uncovered and potential next steps.
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‘The Most Beautiful Sound’: The Queer Nexus of Listening and Voice in Early Modern Italian Convent Life
Lindsay Johnson, Senior Lecturer, Music; and Director, Medieval and Early Modern Studies Program
Lindsay Johnson, Senior Lecturer, Music; and Director, Medieval and Early Modern Studies Program
The convent in Early Modern Italy functioned as a uniquely queer space, denying women heteronormative lives while producing homosocial, virginal communities. As nuns wove together the dual acts of listening and vocalizing, they built queer sonic environments that were the site of massive power struggles between male church officials, the bodies of women religious, and the wealthy families of Italy. This project connects voice studies, feminist and queer musicology, sound studies, and nun studies to explore new ways of approaching convent musicking.
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