Emerging Directions in Music Theory Publication
Organizer(s): Aaron Carter-Ényì (Morehouse College), Ji Yeon Lee (University of Houston)
Chair(s): Aaron Carter-Ényì (Morehouse College), Ji Yeon Lee (University of Houston)
Discussant(s): J. Daniel Jenkins (University of South Carolina)
Recently, the field of music theory has seen increased attention to underrepresented communities and expanding methodologies. The 2025 CoRE sponsored session will address this shift by hearing perspectives from editors of three recent or ongoing publications: the edited volume Modeling Musical Analysis (Oxford University Press, 2025), the special issue Music Theory in the Plural (Music Theory Online, 2025) and the Society for Music Theory’s Video Journal (SMT-V). The editors will reflect on their publication’s role, processes, and goals, including how they welcome and facilitate emerging directions in music theory. Each of the three publications will be represented by an individual or collaborative presentation of 20 minutes, which will be followed by a 30-minute discussion panel of all editors responding to questions from the audience.
Name of sponsoring group
SMT Committee on Race & Ethnicity
Presentations of the Symposium
Modeling Musical Analysis (Oxford University Press, 2025)
Kimberly Goddard Loeffert1, John Peterson2
1Virginia Tech, 2James Madison University
In 2024 eighteen Society for Music Theory members (1.8%) indicated they were biracial white and Asian, and we are two of those eighteen. Our experiences of being multiracial frequently entail questions of belonging. Questions such as “what are you?” or “where are you really from?” are commonplace. Inspired by Philip A. Ewell’s (2020) “Music Theory and the White Racial Frame,” Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain’s (2021) Four Hundred Souls, and the concept of mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors from Emily Style (1988) and Rudine Sims Bishop (1990), we wanted to make a contribution to music theory that would hold space for the voices of minoritized scholars to be heard in music theory classrooms. Modeling Musical Analysis (OUP 2025) is the result: a collection of essays written by underrepresented scholars who model analytical essay writing that is both approachable for and attainable by undergraduate students. In our talk, we trace our motivations and aims for publishing the book, the process we took to achieve our goals, and our hopes for the project’s future.
“Music Theory in the Plural,” - Music Theory Online
Edwin Li1, Chris Stover2, Anna Yu Wang3
1Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2Queensland Conservatorium, Griffiths University, 3Princeton University
The three guest editors of the “Music Theory in the Plural” special issue in MTO will speak to the project's ambitions, the possibilities of global dialogue furnished by its unique commentary feature, and more granular editorial decisions and challenges we encountered along the way. First, we reflect on the guiding purpose of the special issue and the larger Music Theory in the Plural digital project as one of epistemic growth in music theory, to be achieved by thinking deeply about music theories from multiple linguistic and cultural contexts. We briefly survey each of the twelve translation-articles included in the issue, lifting out instances where they propose different axioms, conceptual categories, or priorities for music theory. We then discuss the editorial process, focusing on the non-anonymous, dialogical peer review model and the challenges of balancing source and target significance in translations. Drawing on the symposium’s call for submissions, we reflect on the complexities of evaluating translations for a global Anglophone audience, addressing tensions between local relevance and broader music-theoretical impact, and proposing proactive steps to foster inclusivity in music theory scholarship. Following this, we describe the particular role commissioned commentaries play in the project. The commentaries show how linguistically and culturally distinct frameworks can help us think differently about what appear within narrower contexts to be well-defined music-theoretical concepts. In all cases, concepts from the translated works are drawn into dialogue with larger music-theoretical trajectories to consider how the latter might be enriched or transformed through the interaction.
SMT-V
Táhirih Motazedian
Vassar College
This is an exciting time in music theory, with a surge of fresh ideas and voices entering the field. In this talk I explain why the SMT-V journal presents an excellent model of how our field can support the burgeoning diversity of topics and methods. I discuss the characteristics of SMT-V that make it an ideal space for new modes of theorizing, while also proposing suggestions that might help open up publication in our field as a whole. For anyone who has critiques or concerns about the status quo of the publishing process, I pose solutions.