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Conference Agenda

The Online Program of Events for the 2026 SMT Annual Meeting appears below. Please note that we have Thursday morning sessions!

This program is subject to change. Sessions that are color coded purple indicates that all or some of the presentations are scheduled to either be remote or livestreamed. This is also subject to change.

Use the search bar to search by name or title of paper/session. Note that this search bar does not search by keyword. Click on the session name for a detailed view (with participant names and abstracts).

Daily Overview

Session

The Status of Music Cognition within Music Theory: A Gendered Problem?

Time:

Sunday, 08/Nov/2026:

10:45am - 12:15pm

Location: Regency B

Sponsored by the Committee on Feminist Issues and Gender Equity

Presentations

The Status of Music Cognition within Music Theory: A Gendered Problem?

Chair(s): Cora Palfy (Washington & Jefferson College); Emily Schwitzgebel (University of South Carolina); Aditya Chander (Yale University)

While music theory as a discipline has had a long historical life and is widely accepted as an academic field, music cognition is only still in the nascent stages of establishing a foothold in the academy. Though the properties of sound, sound perception, and psychoacoustic work can be traced back to Greek antiquity, music cognition as a field was “established” academically between the 1950-60s, most concretely after Leonard Meyer’s seminal book, Emotion and Meaning in Music. However, with nearly 75 years of foundational study and work, the field continues to be somewhat othered and minoritized within the larger Society of Music. This panel seeks to discuss the ways in which this minoritization of music cognition is, in some sense, gendered. Our invited panelists will discuss some broader ideas related to this outsider status, including:

Do particular methodologies, such as positivist analysis, qualitative vs. quantitative analysis, behavioral work, computational or data-based analysis, or neuroscientific methods, have a gendered skew in who practices?
"How does the field of music cognition define and operationalize gender, and what impact does this have on studies' purported findings?"
Can and should music cognition be included in a core curriculum for music theory, and if so, how?
When do students hoping to specialize in music cognition gain the requisite skills, if ever? In what ways is this gendered, and can a parallel be drawn to the way women and gender minorities have historically been discouraged from pursuing scientific fields?
Why are music cognition studies often housed within cognitive science or psychology departments rather than music departments?
Why do music cognition researchers need to have one foot in music theory disciplinarily?
How do you go about creating a lab and recruiting students? How do you retain students, how do you recruit for particular skillsets?
How does this gender bias impact the more specific field of music cognition or who practices?

Presentations of the Symposium

Collaboration

Elizabeth Margulis
Princeton University

15-minute lightning talk about collaboration within the field of music cognition.

Music Cognition and the Curriculum

Janet Bourne
University of California, Santa Barbara

15-minute lightning talk about integrating music cognition within standard theory curricula.

Balancing Service and Research

Psyche Loui
Northeastern University

15-minute lightning talk about balancing service and research when running a cognition lab.

Interdisciplinary Mentorship and its Influence on Gender Diversity in Music Theory: Where are we now?

Stefanie Acevedo
University of Connecticut

15-minute lightning talk about mentorship and gender diversity within music cognition and music theory.

Interdisciplinary dynamics

Mary Farbood
New York University

15-minute lightning talk about interdisciplinary dynamics when integrating music cognition into music theory and vice versa.