Beyond Spock's Brain

"Beyond Spock's Brain" is the title of a paper I presented at the Association for Integrative Studies Conference, and which was recently published in the British Journal of Aesthetics Newsletter. It has to do with my observation that our common methods of communication do not always address our potential for efficiently absorbing complex information. "Beyond Spock's Brain" explores how standard communication techniques do not speak to embodied, interdisciplinary learning. As an example of this type of learning, I discuss the methods which musicians use to absorb the information of music in preparation for a performance. I then create an extended and entertaining virtual environment which acts as an educational tool for learning about the theories of aesthetics. This environment serves as an example of a metaphorical interface between complex abstract information and an embodied style of learning, a learning which employs as many senses as possible, including tactile, visual, aural, and kinesthetic.

Who's Wearing the Dress? Gender Identity and Ambivalence in the Piano Music of Chopin and Liszt

"Who's Wearing the Dress..." is a joint paper which Eleanor Trawick and I presented at the Feminist Theory and Music 4 conference in Charlottesvile Virginia.

The abstract, which was written by Eleanor, reads as follows:

Even during their lifetimes, Frederic Chopin's and Franz Liszt's music provided a contrast that did not escape critics, who frequently deemed the former's composition and performance styles to be more effeminate, the latter's to be more forceful and virile. Modern feminist and queer theory have reintroduced such questions of gender identity and musical embodiment into musicology and music theory. Close readings of selected compositions by the two, however, reveal contradictions and ambiguities within individual works that render such a one-dimensional comparison impossible. A recognition of both masculine and feminine qualities within a single work is important not only for a nuanced interpretation but also for an understanding of the richness and complexity of the composers' oeuvre.

Using historical criteria of masculine and feminine traits, we will explore Chopin's Polonaise-Fantaisie and Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody #XI, offering two different and apparently contradictory conclusions. Our discussion will take up questions of rhetoric and surface affect, structure and pianism. We will then argue for the validity of both interpretations and, indeed, for the interdependence of our contrasting readings.