Symposium: Decentering the Canon in the Conservatory

Zoom webinar link will be posted here soon.

Oberlin Conservatory's Division of Musicology will convene a symposium, “Decentering the Canon in the Conservatory,” on Saturday, February 6, from 1:30-3:30 p.m. 

This symposium is part of Oberlin's celebration of Black History Month and will be presented by Oberlin Stage Left. 

While discussions of the claims of canon, canon formation, and the like have a history in academia, at the present moment when issues of social injustice and racism have risen to such tragic heights, that discussion takes on a new and dramatic urgency, and we are anxious to explore these issues together with a number of invited guests. 

Guest Panelists:

Prof. Naomi Andre (University of Michigan), author of the recent Black Opera:  History, Power, Engagement

Prof. Loren Kajikawa (George Washington University), author of Sounding Race in Rap Songs

Prof. Imani Mosley (University of Florida), author of  "Say Her Name: Invocation, Remembrance, and Gendered Trauma in Black Lives Matter" in Performing Commemoration: Musical Reenactment and the Politics of Trauma

Prof. Kira Thurman (University of Michigan), author of the forthcoming Singing Like Germans: Black Musicians in the Land of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms

Moderated by Chris Jenkins, Oberlin Conservatory associate dean for academic support.