Conference: “COMMUNITIES OF SONG: PERFORMING SUNG POETRY IN THE MODERN WORLD” Keynote Speaker: J. Martin Daughtry

Communities of Song’ Keynote: J. MARTIN DAUGHTRY (NYU)

April 3 @ 4:15 pm | HYDE HALL | Free

J. Martin Daughtry (New York University) presents a keynote lecture entitled “Posthuman Bards, or Vocal Scenes from the Anthropocene” as part of the April 2-3 conference “Communities of Song: Performing Sung Poetry in the Modern World.”

The affinity of music and poetry is so intuitive that we often fail to pause and notice the pervasive presence of so-called “sung poetry” as a genre across cultural contexts. In fact, the studies of music and poetry that exist provocatively explore the formal challenges of giving voice to verse. This focus on poetics, while vital to many writers’ and musicians’ own fascination with the project of sung poetry, ignores the centrality of sung poetry in culture—among audiences, in public discourse, and as a means of negotiating collectivities. With “Communities of Song: Performing Sung Poetry in the Modern World” we convene a conversation about sung poetry not only for its poetics but for its association with social memory. By singing poems, musicians and other social agents transform poetry into cultural performances. Repertories of sung poetry frequently play a critical role at moments of community formation, be these collective national, ethnic, postcolonial, or otherwise. In practice, sung poetry is instrumental for social action as well as for marking and sculpting geography.