Conference Agenda

Organized by the LGBTQ Study Group.

In 1991, the then-named Gay and Lesbian Study Group of the AMS gathered at the Palmer House Hotel in Chicago for the Annual Meeting, further coalescing one year after the study group’s founding in Oakland. GLSG co-chairs Philip Brett and Lydia Hamessley announced the AMS’s warm response toward the study group; Mitchell Morris and Suzanne Cusick presented on the rich potential for applying then-emergent queer theoretical frameworks to musical contexts; and colleagues discussed the practical and political concerns around “coming out” in academic contexts. That GLSG meeting worked to affirm gay and lesbian musicological thought in a time when AMS presentations on sexuality and music were few in number, and offered a vital space for community building and mutual support. Thirty-three years later, the LGBTQ Study Group now celebrates its return to Chicago as an opportunity to reflect on these early efforts, think critically about the present needs of LGBTQ music scholars, and strengthen our collective network to attend to those needs in the future.

This session will feature a 45-minute panel of scholars present at that early meeting, including Lydia Hamessley, Mitchell Morris, Suzanne Cusick, and Judith Peraino, who will speak to these foundational efforts to support LGBTQ scholars and knowledge production. Following the panel, attendees will be invited to share their reflections on the past, present, and future of LGBTQ music studies in small groups, offering an opportunity for cross-generational scholarly engagement. Participants will engage in conversation around the contemporary research and pedagogical landscape for LGBTQ music studies, with attention to conditions of increasing hostility and violence toward queer and trans individuals, communities, and knowledge production. This session will offer an exciting moment for the study group to reflect on its history and imagine how the group can rise to meet the challenges LGBTQ music scholars face in the present.