糖心传媒

Constructing Otherness: Critical Representation of Musicians in the Press

By Kristen Strandberg
Assistant Professor of Music History

Nineteenth-century French critics frequently asserted the superiority of French musicians, often discussing marginalized performers in language that implied their inferiority. Critics especially targeted foreign and female performers by pointing out their “mechanical” playing style to demonstrate a performer’s lack of artistry and nuance. In this lecture, Strandberg will demonstrate the range of cultural meaning behind assertions of “mechanical” playing. Critical and philosophical writings of the period reveal anxieties about the increased mechanization of culture following the Industrial Revolution and the ways those anxieties affected the arts. Meanwhile, the popularity of automata in stage shows and contemporary literature demonstrates a new and widespread fascination with technology as entertainment. In exploring the cultural assumptions and meanings of mechanized performance, we see these simultaneous anxieties and fascinations.
 
The lecture begins at 4:00 p.m.
Wednesday, February 5, 2020
Eykamp Hall (Room 252), Ridgway University Center
A social gathering with beverages begins at 3:45 p.m.

For further information, call Annette Parks at 812-488-1070
or the William L. Ridgway College of Arts and Sciences at 812-488-2589