Amy Ku’uleialoha Stillman, “Notes on Some Critical Indigenous Ethnomusicological Practices”

Join us for a lecture by Professor Amy K. Stillman: “Notes on Some Critical Indigenous Ethnomusicological Practices: Thinking, for example, about deep musical soundscapes and sonic intimacies archived in Indigenous Bodies”

What can an indigenized ethnomusicology contribute to knowledge production, musical knowledge, and knowledge about musical practice by, about, and especially for [in the service of] indigenous people? My title raises two questions:

1) Starting from a general perspective of asking how soundscapes and sonic intimacies are experienced by indigenous people, and to bring this within an explicitly ethnomusicological framework, how are musical soundscapes and musical sonic intimacies experienced by Indigenous peoples?

2) How are musical soundscapes and musical sonic intimacies archived in indigenous bodies? My tactic, here, is to work outward from my own positionality as a Native Hawaiian woman raised in a Hawaiian household and shaped by decades of research on Hawaiian music and dance performance. I propose to outline my thoughts by strolling down a path of discovery. I invite you to join me as we gather bits and pieces along the way, so that we might work together toward a view of an ethnomusicological practice that is resonant with Indigenous ways of being in the world.

AMY KU’ULEIALOHA STILLMAN is Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, Professor of American Culture and Musicology, and Director of Native American Studies at the University of Michigan. She has published widely on historical aspects of Hawaiian and other Polynesian musics and dance. She has also curated and co-produced nine CDs, and is recipient of the Hawaiʻi Music Award as well as two GRAMMY awards in Hawaiian music. Her current project, nearing completion, is a critical edition of Hawaiian repertoire which will appear as one volume in the Music of the United States of America series published by the American Musicological Society.

This program is organized by the Department of Musicology. For questions, including those pertaining to accessibility, please contact Dr. Diane Oliva, [email protected] or Dr. Charles Lwanga, [email protected]