Lectures in Music Studies

Lecture Series

Lectures in Music Studies is co-sponsored by The Ohio State University Libraries. The series (formerly known as Lectures in Musicology) invites conversation with experts across musicology and theory disciplines. Numerous university centers and institutes at Ohio State also provide valuable opportunities for interdisciplinary research. Those of particular interest include the Center for Cognitive Science, the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, the Hilandar Research Center for Medieval Slavic Studies, the Slavic and East European Studies Center, the Center for African Studies, the Center for Folklore Studies, the Humanities Institute, the Lawrence and Lee Theatre Research Institute, the Melton Center for Jewish Studies and the Wexner Center for the Arts.

Offered Mondays at 4 p.m. and in person unless noted otherwise.

Attendance is free.

In-person at the 18th Avenue Library, 175 W. 18th Ave. (Music & Dance Library, second floor, room 205). Campus visitors, please use either the Tuttle Park Place Garage or the Ohio Union South Garage. All other garages in the vicinity of the 18th Ave. Library are closed to visitors before 4 p.m.

Autumn 2025

Lectures will be held on Mondays at 4 p.m. at 205 Music/Dance Library unless otherwise noted.

Co-sponsored by The Ohio State University Libraries and the School of Music.

Additional lecture details will be posted as they become available.

September 29

Arved Ashby, professor of musicology, Ohio State, presents "My Queer Anthem."

October 9–11

Practitioner-Centered Music Theory Conference | Timashev Family Music Building

Featured Speakers:

Jason Rawls, assistant professor of hip hop, Ohio State
Jonathan De Souza, associate professor of music theory, University of Western Ontario
Leslie Tilley, associate professor of world music, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

November 17

Tammy L. Kernodle, University Distinguished Professor of Music, Miami University (Ohio), recent recipient of the School of Music Alumni Award, presents "I've Got a Story to Tell: Black Women, Autobiography, and the Reimagining of Jazz History.” Co-sponsored by the Ohio State Humanities Institute.

November 24

Aleksandra (Sasha) Drozzina, assistant professor of music theory, Ohio State, presents "Monetochka and IC3PEAK: Russian Popular Music and/as Resistance."

All events are subject to change.

Spring 2025

1/27/25 | Johanna Frymoyer, assistant professor of music theory, University of Notre Dame, presents “Topical Affordances in Modernist Performance Practice.”
2/3/25 | Elea Proctor, assistant professor, Department of African American and African Studies at Ohio State, presents “Black Women and Blackface Minstrelsy at the Turn of the Twentieth Century.”
2/24/25 | Inaugural Lecture: Shawn Wallace, professor of jazz saxophone, presents "Authentic Representation and Systemic Exclusion in Black American Music." The Arts and Humanities Inaugural Lecture Series is sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences.
2/17/25 | Featured in The Lantern | Dylan Crosson, PhD candidate in musicology at Ohio State, presents “Audible Orthodoxies: How Contemporary Worship Music Turns Evangelical Values into Musical Style.”
2/20/25 | William Poland Lecture: Form and the Song Persona. The 2025 William Poland Lecture will be presented by Drew Nobile, associate professor and chair of music theory at the University of Oregon's School of Music and Dance.
3/31/25 | Jason Buchea, associated faculty and PhD candidate in musicology at Ohio State, presents “Massamba Diop: Becoming the Sonic Embodiment of the Black Panther."

Autumn 2024

9/16/24 | "The Politics of Hope in the Time of Crisis." With Matt Sakakeeny, associate professor of music at Tulane University. Sponsored by EMIC, Graduate Student Interest Group for Expressive Culture; co-sponsored by the School of Music and The Ohio State University Libraries.
9/23/24 | Wexner Center for the Arts Film/Video Theatre | Screening of Dani Kouyaté's film Katanga: The Dance of the Scorpions (2024). Supported by an Ohio State Arts and Humanities Large Grant from the College of Arts and Sciences and co-sponsored by the School of Music and Department of African American and African Studies.

9/24/24 | Faculty Club, Grand Lounge | Dani Kouyaté joins Prof. Ryan Skinner (Music and AAAS) for Skinner’s “Inaugural Lecture,” “Dialogue as Humanistic Inquiry.” Kouyaté and Skinner introduce their collaborative book project, Openings: The Life, Work, and Worldview of a Cinematic Griot, and discuss Kouyaté’s new film.
10/7/24 | "Voices and Authority in Everyday Japan." With Joshua D. Pilzer, associate professor of ethnomusicology at the University of Toronto. Co-sponsored by The Ohio State University Libraries and the School of Music.
10/28/24 | "Imagining the Homeland in Times of Trauma: Immigrant Musical Theater and the Great War." With Peter Graff, visiting assistant professor at Denison University. Sponsored by EMIC, Graduate Student Interest Group for Expressive Culture; co-sponsored by the School of Music and The Ohio State University Libraries.
11/4/24 | "Radical Sonic Disidentifications: Decolonial Sounds at Tremor." With Abigail C. Lindo, assistant professor, Comparative Studies and African American and African Studies at Ohio State. Co-sponsored by The Ohio State University Libraries and the School of Music.