Buried

My apologies for a lengthy absence, it's been a busy couple of terms. I am currently allergy-ridden and buried underneath a pile of term paper drafts and midterms. I will probably reappear at the end of the quarter once I finish my term papers. Bear with me. In the meantime, I was seduced by New Orleans and think I would immediately move there if I had the opportunity. The PCA conference was awesome, my paper was very well-received, I met many new friends from different disciplines, danced onstage at a drag show, and now have academic groupies...all in all, an awesome trip. I'm also currently pining to go back to Vienna, but that's not in the cards at the moment.

Graz: Where I Went to a Conference and Was Almost Arrested

The train ride to Graz was amazing. The Eurail traveled through the Alps taking us to southern Austria (Styria), famous for pumpkin seed oil and traditional cuisine We arrived and were promptly lost once again in the rain. We checked into our less than stellar accomodations of the Jugend & Familiegästenhaus and headed out into the rain, got lost again, and eventually met the musicologists for a wonderful dinner at GlocklBräu. I met a lot of lovely ladies from England, Austria, and Germany, and was excited for the promise of meeting more international conferencers the next day. GlocklBräu provided me with some real traditional Austrian fare--my first Wienerschnitzel breaded in toasted pumpkin seeds, a side of potato salad, and a maßt of the GlocklBräu bier. Of course, I could only manage half the meal, since the Wienerschnitzel was the size of my face, but oh so good! After a tiring day of train travel and meeting internatonal musicologists, I headed back to the hostel to get some sleep before presenting my paper early the next morning.

We were greeted at the 1st International Conference for the Students of Systematic Musicology with much pomp and circumstance. My paper was surprisingly well-received considering it fit into the second category of the Austrian conception of systematic musicology--i.e. interdisciplinary methodologies drawing on aesthetics, gender, etc. I got to hear a lot of papers using my conception of systematic musicology and sparked some ideas how I can incorporate these methods into my dissertation research. One of my favorite presentations of the conference considered house music as a South African phenomenon, presented by Thokozani Mhlambi from the University of Capetown. He danced during his presentation, which was pretty cool! Later that night we were treated to a wine and cheese reception and a jazz performance. I met peple from all over including Poland, Croatia, Italy, Mexico, Finland, etc. It was the musicological UN.

On day two in Graz, en route to the conference from the hostel, I got a ticket from the bus police for not following proper procedure and had to pay 60 Eur. Ugh. However, I soldiered on and enjoyed another day filled with conference papers, hung out with some witty Brits, drank a lot of coffee before heading off to our swanky send-off party at the super cool Murinsel where we had a delicious dinner and drinks with new friends. I wished we could have stayed longer if only to have more conversations with these fascinating people and to explore the town some more! But, I had left my heart in Vienna and had to retrieve it. Off on another four hour train ride to return to Vienna.

The few pics of Graz are here.

Back from Blogging Hiatus

I haven't updated in what feels like forever, but I am back. I anticipated blogging during my travels to Austria, but I was running around so much and having a great time I decided not to spoil it with things such as keeping my blog updated. So I filed away all the adventures in my mind to share when I had the time, and I found myself with a couple hours...so now you get to read about my Austrian travels and adventures. The conference was a success and I was glad to have met so many new international friends. I cam back to piles of grading and my own work to deal with...but it was all worth it. I made it through another quarter of perilously lengthy term papers and finals week grading mania. I am pleased that the majority of my students did very well in the course and hope they continue on this path as we begin our journey through the 19th century this winter. I'm excited about the holidays as well, I fly back to Syracuse on Sunday for a week and am ready to enjoy a really white Christmas!

Back to Sunny California

So the good news keeps on coming! I just found out I will be speaking on a panel on Queer Musical Genealogies at the Los Angeles Queer Studies Conference in October. My first panel paper and a chance to go back to a city that I am in absolute LOVE with? I am SO there!

My paper for this panel will be on lesbian musical identities in Showtime's drama The L Word. Of course, I am starting all the research from scratch, so I need to get rolling on that now. However, I am very excited to contribute to this panel with two brilliant queer musicology scholars from UCLA I met at the ECHO Conference.

I am excited not only by all the travel that awaits me this year, but the opportunity to stretch out my ideas into new interdisciplinary zones, such as this queer studies conference, the systematic musicology conference in Graz, and the popular culture association conference in New Orleans. If nothing else, I am sure these opportunities will stimulate a lot of new interdisciplinary connections. I am happy, in the nerdiest possible way.

Vienna and New Orleans?!?

I just found out one of my colleagues will also be attending the Graz conference with me, so I will have a travel buddy. The two of us represent 2/3 of the Americans (in that there are only three of us) attending this conference--there will be one other student there from Brown. We booked our airfare last night and got a surprisingly good deal to Vienna. Plans are tentatively to fly in to Vienna, chill there a bit, Salzburg, somewhere in Italy, and then head to the conference, go back to Vienna and fly home. The timing is bit weird since AMS is the weekend before, so we planned to extend the Europe trip in lieu of going to Nashville this year. So, the airfare is purchased! Now we have a couple months to plan out the hostel and train situation.

Today I also received an email that my abstract was accepted for the 2009 Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association national meeting. Sort of like AMS/SMT for pop culture studies. My paper is on various issues surrounding Gwen Stefani's Harajuku Girls: fashion, imperialism, mass marketing, narratives of the body, representations of Asian sexualities, and of course--the music. Oh, and the conference is in New Orleans!!! It looks like 2008-2009 is going to be my year of traveling, so I'm pretty excited so far.

Europe, Here I Come!

I am going to Graz, Austria to present a paper in November at the First International Conference of Students of Systematic Musicology at the University of Graz! I am super excited as I've not yet traveled to Europe (a sad excuse for a musicologist, I know).

Now, to figure out how to afford the ridiculously expensive airfare, lodging, etc.

I am finally going to Europe!!!! I am beyond excited.