Errant Voices: Performances Beyond Measure Day 2

Photo of a painting by Robert Reiss with the text "Errant Voices Performances Beyond Measure"

April 30, 2022 | 9:00AM
Logan Center for the Arts Penthouse

April 29 – April 30, 2022

Co-Organizers: Martha Feldman, Bonnie Gordon, and Kara Keeling

"Errant Voices: Performances Beyond Measure” explores voices that share in an attempt to escape their confines perforce or by choice, taking as its three main case studies trans*, raced, and castrato voices. This two-day, in-person conference will work to make sense of these voices, by turns insurgent and resilient, as ones that defy categorization, appearing at their most revealing in performances that are capacious and open, resisting description, norms, and even ontological certainty. Deborah Vargas (Associate Professor and Henry Rutgers Term Chair in Comparative Sexuality, Gender, and Race in the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Rutgers University) will deliver the keynote, "El Grito: The Errant Cries of Mexicanidad.

The complete list of participants, speaker abstracts, conference schedule, and registration link can be found on the conference website. Please note that registration is REQUIRED for attendance, as all events are in-person. Register here.

 

Day 2 Schedule: Saturday, April 30, 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM

9:00 coffee 

ADJACENCIES  

Chair, Sylvie Boulette (Department of English, University of Chicago)

9:30 Martha Feldman (Department of Music and Committee on Theater and Performance Studies, University of Chicago) 

  • Castrato / Trans 

10:00 Grace Lavery (Department of English, University of California at Berkeley)  

  • Clockiness and Vocality: Notes Towards a Theory of the Giveaway 

11:00 coffee  


ARTISTS    

Chair, Andrew F. Jones (Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, University of California at Berkeley)  

11:15 Emily Wilbourne (Department of Music, City University of New York and Queen’s College) 

  • The Black Castrato in the Seventeenth Century 

11:45 Tammy L. Kernodle (Department of Music, Miami University of Ohio) 

  • Take It from My Mouth: Odetta, Black Orality, and the Radicalness of Black Folk Culture 

12:15 Noémie Ndiaye (Department of English and Committee on Theater and Performance Studies, University of Chicago), respondent 

1:00 lunch 


ORALITIES  

Chair, Tina Post (Department of English and Committee on Theater and Performance Studies, University of Chicago) 

2:00 Francesca Royster (Department of English, DePaul University) 

  • Uneasy Listening: Tina Turner’s Queer Frequencies 

2:30 Mark Burford (Department of Music, Reed College)  

  • Performing Preservation: White Women’s Voices and Old South Black Song 

3:00 Jessica Baker (Department of Music, University of Chicago), respondent 

3:45 coffee 


ROUNDTABLE  

4-6:00

UChicago Graduate Student Discussants: Rachel Chery (Department of Music), Tomal Hossain (Department of  Music), Eva Pensis (Department of Music and Committee on Theater and Performance Studies) 

Discussion led off by Martha FeldmanBonnie GordonKara KeelingAmy Skjerseth, and Alexander G. Weheliye (Department of African American Studies, Northwestern University) 

...

Sponsored by the University of Chicago’s Department of Music, Franke Institute for the Humanities, and Division of the Humanities, with additional support from the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture, the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, the Center for Latin American Studies, the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry, the Office of the Provost, the Committee on Theater and Performance Studies, and the Departments of Cinema and Media Studies and English, together with the University of Virginia’s Religion, Race, & Democracy Lab and Institute of the Humanities and Global Cultures.

View the Day 1 Schedule
Learn more about Errant Voices on their website

Painting by Robert Reiss, ca. 1960s
Logo Designed by Matt Avery