Support Network

Look here for information related to pedagogy, personal experiences, family and work situations, etc. and disability.


Check Responses or Participate in a Survey on "Teaching Experience with Students Who Have Disabilities"

Advice from a panel on pedagogy and other issues.

Information and recent exchanges on dismus-list / SMT list on disability issues.

Welcome

Disability

-- defined as "a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of the major life activities -- is a pervasive and permanent aspect of the human condition. Our Interest Group seeks to engage issues related to disability in a variety of ways:

  • Building on the astonishing outpouring of humanistic work in Disability Studies in the past ten years (Disability Studies offers a sociopolitical analysis of disability, focusing on social and cultural constructions of the meaning of disability), our Interest Group seeks to foster conversation among musicians about music-historical and music-theoretical issues related to disability.
  • Our group has sponsored a series of panels and paper sessions at scholarly conferences, and members of our Interest Group have published articles and books and music and disability (see our online Reading List). Many of these had their origins in events sponsored by our group (see especially the essay collection Sounding Off (edited by Neil Lerner and Joe Straus) and the special issue of Music Theory Online (vol. 15, nos. 3-4).
  • Our Interest Group provides guidance and resources for classroom teachers—see our Resources for Teachers and Students and our Panel of Experts.
  • Our Interest Group meets annually to hear presentations and plan future events. If you are interested please contact Joseph N. Straus or Dave Headlam. To subscribe to our list-serv, please send mail to LISTSERV@GC.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU with the command (paste it!): SUBSCRIBE DISMUS-L

New Literature & Media

Joseph N. Straus has a recent interview on a WQXR Blog:
Beethoven’s Deafness: For Better or Worse – Or Neither?

Music, Disability, and Society

Alex Lubet
Temple University Press 		Extraordinary Measures: Disability in Music

Joseph N. Straus
 Sounding Off
Edited by
Joseph N Straus
& Neil Lerner


Recent Publications in Music and Disability Studies

Samantha Bassler has written "'That suck'd the honey of his music vows': Disability studies in early modern musicological research," postmedieval 3 (2012): 182-194. ( Download pdf )

Anabel Maler explores American Sign Language translations of popular songs, showing how they adapt ASL signs to represent musical features; her article is Songs for Hands: Analyzing Interactions of Sign Language and Music in the recent issue of Music Theory Online, Volume 19.1

Jensen-Moulton, Stephanie. 2012. "Intellectual Disability in Carlisle Floyd's Of Mice and Men." American Music Vol. 30, No. 2 (Summer), pp. 129-156.

Also see New Literature and Media below.

Partnership Program

As part of its current focus on issues faced by scholars with disabilities, the SMT Interest Group on Music and Disability announces a new Partnership Program. We will pair interested individuals (faculty and graduate students) for the purpose of sharing stories, ideas, and information about living in academia with a disability. The program is open to individuals affiliated with either AMS or SMT. These pairings might take the form of traditional mentor/mentee relationships with relatively senior faculty guiding relatively junior faculty or graduate students, or may take the form of partnerships between peers.

If you (or a close family member) live with a disability and would like to form a sustaining contact with a fellow music scholar in a similar position, please forward your contact information and any specific wishes to Shersten Johnson at srjohnson2 [at] stthomas.edu. All information will remain confidential, and we will do our best to pair you up with a suitable mentor, mentee, or partner.

Welcome

Welcome to the SMT Interest Group on Music and Disability

copyright 2011 The Society for Music Theory Interest Group on Music and Disability.
Webmaster: Dave Headlam (dheadlam [at] esm.rochester.edu