CONFERENCE REPORT

Newsletter of the Royal Musical Association, Autmn 2006

Interdisciplinary Nineteenth Century Studies International Conference
Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies (INCS), The Centre for Nineteenth-Century Music & St Chad's College, Durham University, UK
6 – 9 July 2006
Organised by Dr Bennett Zon, Director of the Centre for Nineteenth-Century Music

Scholars from a variety of disciplines, from all over the globe (California, Helsinki, Lancaster, Melbourne, Paris, Singapore) came together to participate and experience in this active, fruitful cross-disciplinary communication.  Durham University has been the first institution to hold this event in conjunction with a music department, bringing more musicologists and analysts to the conference than previous events.  The diversity of subjects proved to be an asset in opening up discussion on all topics and linking across research areas to define each paper within the larger context of the long nineteenth-century.
The format of previous INCS conferences was sustained to the benefit of speakers and delegates.  Complete papers were submitted online prior to the event allowing time for delegates to access papers via a password protected web-site.  Speakers presented a 7 minute summary of the paper: some chose to situate the paper in its wider context regarding previous and further research outlets; others furthered the application of their research; while some of the most successful papers illustrated their work with detailed examples.  The shorter time to present allowed much more time for discussion, which as a consequence of prior access to the papers was without fail lively, incorporating prepared questions and new ideas arisen from the additional examples provided.  This format was most beneficial for those papers that were analytical in origin (especially the music-centric papers) or those that used visual, multimedia examples.
Interdisciplinary research has become a hot-topic in recent years and the work done by INCS has created a fruitful outlet for further research on an international scale, resulting in many publications from INCS events to appear in its associated journal, Nineteenth-Century Contexts: An Interdisciplinary Journal, edited by Greg Kucich  (University of Notre Dame), who also presented at this conference, and Keith Hanley (Lancaster University).
102 papers were presented throughout the conference, frequently running four parallel sessions.  The conference organisers drew from the wealth of musical activity in the area to supplement the academic exchange with performances from The Reg Vardy Band, a local brass band that provided some non-UK residents their first experience of this ensemble.  Durham’s Cathedral Choir sang at evening song the following night, followed by a specially organised organ recital by James Lancelot.  All these events programmed nineteenth-century music.  Additionally, The Reg Vardy Band incorporated original nineteenth-century instruments (donated by Durham University) into their programme.  The last evening had a champagne reception accompanied by speeches including the president of INCS Clare Simmons (Ohio State University) who acknowledged the many activities of INCS and Durham’s part in contributing to interdisciplinary international research.  All speeches, including the director of Durham’s newly established Institute of Advanced Study, promoted the need for more interdisciplinary events.  The conference banquet ended with everyone on their feet dancing to a Ceilidh accompanied and directed by The Trimdon Folk Band.
The first keynote speaker Professors Philip Bohlman (The University of Chicago) talked about ‘Herder’s Nineteenth Century’, in which he encountered numerous issues regarding Herder’s impact, from multi-layered narrative histories and aesthetic interpretations to considering the musical map (how and where musical styles travel, national and cultural tendencies) to inevitably raising concerns regarding the possession of voice.  Bohlman was a fluid speaker, personally illustrating many sung examples.  The second keynote was lead by David Baguley (The University of Western Ontario and Durham University) who discussed ‘History and Fiction: the Example of Zola’s Rougon-Macquart Series’.  Again cultural and historical contexts were linked to ideas of narrative and voice.  Both keynotes and the majority of the papers explore change within this century.
Numerous session were devoted to ‘Gender and Sexuality’, indeed two simultaneous sessions on the topic opened the conference.  Interestingly and rather tellingly all but one of the speakers were female.  Papers by Heidi Brevik-Zender (Brown University), Jill R. Ehnenn (Appalachian State University) and Kritin Flieger Samuelian (George Mason University) were connected by issues of sexual identity and imagination (be it in an image or in the object of attention).  Samuelian’s paper saw the body as a ‘locus of preoccupation’, via visual evidence she illustrated the English reception of the ‘Unruly Queen’.  Responses to Prince Georges marriage (1795) combined a distaste for foreigners with homophobic tendencies: indeed reception issues predictably arose throughout the conference.
Other recurring themes included ‘Representation and Metaphor’, epitomised in Matthew Bribitzer-Stull’s paper ‘From Nibelheim to Hollywood: The Associativity of Harmonic Progression’ (University of Minnesota).  He traced small harmonic fragments that were used in Wagner’s Ring for specific suggestive effects and linked their use to film scores in which the musical associations were the same as in their original Wagnerian contexts.  This paper particularly benefited from the INCS format as it allowed Bribitzer-Stull to illustrate his paper with selected visual-aural examples.  It also showed how a diverse audience gained as much from the issues surrounding a music-centric analysis as a purely musicological audience would have received. 
Research sources were constantly in the foreground: questions regarding the subjectivity of materials, the possession of voice, agency and meaning were paramount.  Two sessions explored ‘Texts’ in the form of histories and criticisms.  One of the final sessions ‘Performance Practice and Theory’ developed a stimulating discussion regarding the changing role of the artist in the nineteenth-century that extended well into lunch.  Issues of simplicity, raised in previous papers encountering Wagner’s influence from Helen Julia Minors (Lancaster University) and Bribitzer-Stull, were brought back into the discussion on Wagner’s use of technology (Katherine Syer, Illonois University) and Tchaikovsky’s inability to relate to Wagner (Renate Bräuninger, University of Winchester).
Most of the papers tackled ideas of change throughout the nineteenth century — be it cultural, technological, artistic or political — forming inevitable connections and sparking further questions.  Gender was a hot topic, not only in the sessions entitled sexuality, but throughout all areas touched upon: the role of women in the nineteenth century was raised as a research issue in almost all areas from historical readings, literary criticisms to musical analysis and religious understanding.

Helen Julia Minors (Lancaster University)
[Information about INCS can be found at http://www.nd.edu/~ncc/]

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