Feminist Theory and Music '11 Day 2

If I didn't come to this conference, I wouldn't have known so much about the problems in academia.
The keynote speech this morning by Julia Koza was a something between thoughtfulness and painfulness (as the Chinese saying goes, the pain of cutting your skin). It was incredible that UW Madison had done research showing tenureship rates in the Arts is the lowest among different faculties in a university, and that in women is significantly lower than men. Sometimes I'm sick of feminists quoting heavily on discriminative speeches done/ passages written by men; but Koza put a compelling argument, and also avowed to act to help her fellows who have not gotten tenureship. It is also worth noting that less than 20% of women professors are able to have a child plus have tenureship at the same time by the age of 40. The percentage of men achieving those is significantly higher (Koza has the stats; it's my bad that i forgot.) After-panel discussions included stories of UCLA and UIUC, and how university trustees may affect tenureship policies.

The topic is, of course, related to Hong Kong, too. Not only people are looking for tenureship; the shelter of tenureship also enables members of the faculty to speak up, not like, as Koza says, "it's not a good time to die, now". Especially when the freedom of speech is in risk with mainland Chinese political influence, scholars in most cases will not speak against the government, or make political statements, if they do not have tenureship. As a result, there will be no meaningful musicological articles on post 1949 music in China. (Yes, I dare make this statement.)

A few presentations today focused on forgotten female contributors to music. Johann Strauss's Jr's wives (Zoe Lang), Jutta Hipp (Ursel Schlicht), Pauline Viardot (Natalie Emptage Downs). They successfully argued their importance, but I think we need another person to show us how they can be inserted to textbooks. Now we only know they should be in there. Another question would be about the ethics of writing history: writing history is what each and every musicologist is doing.

The paper session concerning E.T.A. Hoffman is of intense interest for me, since it deals with literature and music. The two papers on Hoffman broadened my sight on how we can write about them. My question would be how relevant the papers will be, to society? 1. A suceesful paper does not need to have this link; 2. Literature is innately tied to society, I know. But the link has to be outlined in each case, if the author wants to show that link.

Lastly, I would like to point to Elizabeth Gould's paper, offering a lesbian-seduction reading of the Flower Duet in Lakme in a particular performance. I will have to watch the video again to see if I agree with her, but she is definitely provocative and... that's why I love this conference. This is one of the frontiers of musicology!