Princeton University

Alumnus, Music

About

Paula Higgins is a cultural musicologist whose research blends historical study of music with gender studies, feminist criticism, queer theory, cultural and media studies, and cultural anthropology. Overarching themes pervading both her scholarship and teaching include gender and patriarchy; historiography and reception; authorship, creativity, and lineage (fictive kinship); ideologies of genius; postmodern symbioses of opera, classical and popular musics; music and violence; death and commemoration.

Feminist criticism and gender studies have figured prominently in her research since 1986. She published some of the first articles treating aspects of early music from a feminist critical perspective (cf “Parisian Nobles,” “The Other Minervas,” “Love and Death,” and “Musical ‘Parents’ and their ‘Progeny’”). Her article in “Women in Music, Feminist Criticism, and Guerrilla Musicology” (19th-Century Music), which situated McClary’s Feminine Endings within a broader feminist context, figures as required reading on many syllabi internationally.

Her work as both a scholar and teacher has long privileged the question of how music, as a cultural artifact and phenomenon, impacts on issues of ethics, social justice and cultural prejudice; constructions of genius and authorship; pernicious stereotypes of gender, race, class, and sexuality; as well as institutional sexism, misogyny, homophobia, and racism. Her work thus embraces a strong component of avowedly ethical and political criticism in encouraging students to examine the power of music as a phenomenon that can create understanding and empathy amongst ideologically and politically disparate groups, effect social change, and raise political awareness and cultural consciousness, both locally and globally, about issues of social justice, civil liberties, and human rights.

Email: pmhiggins at alumni.princeton.edu

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Qualifications:

• PhD,  Princeton University, 1987
• MFA, Princeton University, 1978
• BA, Magna cum Laude, Mount Holyoke College, 1976

Languages:

• French (fluent)
• Italian (fluent)
• German (good)
• Latin (reading)
• Late medieval French and Latin (paleography, manuscripts, archival documents)

Full-time teaching and research positions:

• University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK:  Professor of Music, 2004-2011; Head of Department 2005-2006
• University of Notre Dame,  Notre Dame, IN (US):  Professor of Music, 2001-2005; Associate Professor of Music, 1990-2001
• Duke University, Durham, NC (US):  Assistant Professor of Music, 1987-1990; Lecturer in Music, 1984-1987

Visiting teaching and research appointments:

• Käthe-Leichter Gastprofessorin für Frauenforschung und Gender Studies, Universität Wien (AT), Spring Semester, 2007
• The Newberry Library, Chicago, IL, US: National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Residential Fellowship, AY 2003-2004
• Wolfson College, Oxford University (UK), Visiting Research Fellow, Trinity Term, 1995
• University of Chicago, Visiting Associate Professor of Music, Spring Term, 1994
• Harvard University, Visiting Scholar, Spring 1990

Publications (see Books and Papers):

Articles in JAMS, Early Music History, Nineteenth-Century Music, Acta Musicologica, Renaissance Quarterly, Current Musicology, and in numerous collections of essays and conference proceedings.

Edited volumes:

• Antoine Busnoys: Method, Meaning, and Context in Late Medieval Music (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999; New York, Oxford University Press, 2000)
• Chansonnier Nivelle de La Chaussée (Geneva: Minkoff, 1984) (see Books). 

Editor-in-Chief:

Journal of the American Musicological Society, 1996-1998 (Vols. 49, 50, 51)

Forthcoming articles:

• Femmes libres, Femmes savantes, and Other Monstrous Women: Fanny Hensel and the ‘Anxiety of Authorship' (100+ page manuscript)
• Mourning Matthew Shepard and Other Wyoming Cowboys: Queer Remembrance and Social Justice in Rufus Wainwright’s ‘Maker Makes’ (100+ page-manuscript, plates, and music exx)
• Bach and the Summer of Love, Understanding Bach, 7 (2012)
• Josquin des Prez and Others, Early Music (2012)

Articles in progress:

• ‘Undoing’ the Don:  Erotic Gesture and Sexual Violence in Mozart’s ‘Unpleasant Opera’
• Josquin and the Dormouse: Aesthetic Excess, Masculinity, and Homoeroticism in the Reception of *Planxit autem David*
• ‘Meet Me at the Met’: Opera and Constructions of Gender, Race, Class, and Sexuality in Hollywood Films since 1987
• Authorship, Ingenuity, and Technologies of Secrecy in the Naples *L’Homme armé* Masses

Papers in progress

• ‘Go Ask Alice’: Grace Slick, ‘White Rabbit’, and the Making of a Second-Wave Feminist

Books in progress (longer-term projects):

• Dissident Subjects: Essays on Gender, Race, Class, and Sexuality in Western Musical Culture
• Propagating Song: Teachers, Students, and Creative Patrilineage in Early Modern Musical Culture
• From Oz to the Opera House: The Musical Odyssey of Rufus Wainwright
• Minerva Among Masters: Fanny Hensel and the Anxiety of Authorship

Teaching (research-related signature courses):

• Gender, Race, and Social Justice in Anglo-American Popular Music
• Gender, Race, Class, and Sexuality in Western Musical Culture
• Gender, Sexuality and Violence in Opera
• Gender, Genius and the Woman Composer
• Music and Violence
• Death and Commemoration in Music

Invited research seminars (since 2001; see Talks):

• London Society for Medieval Studies, Institute of Historical Research, School of Advanced Study, University of London, UK, 27 May 2008
• Department of Music, CUNY Graduate Center, New York, US, 8 November 2007
• Department of Music, University of Newcastle, UK, 17 October 2007
• Institut für Media Studies und Film, Queere Interventionen, Universät Wien, AT, 18 June 2007
• Institute of Historical Research, School of Advanced Study, University of London, UK,  5 March 2007
• Department of Music, University of Edinburgh, UK, 18 January 2007
• Institute of Musical Research, School of Advanced Study, University of London, UK, 30 November 2006
• Early Music Seminar, All Souls College, Oxford University, UK, 23 February 2006
• Department of Music, King’s College, University of London, 30 November 2005
• Newberry Library, Chicago, IL, US, 9 February 2004
• Department of Music, Yale University, US, 1 April 2002

Invited and/or refereed research conferences (since 2001, see Talks):

• UK Bach Network, Fifth Johann Sebastian Bach Dialogue Meeting, Edinburgh, 11-14 August 2011
• Society for Ethnomusicology, Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, CA, 11-14 November 2010
• Ave/Eva: Text, Music and Gender in the Middle Ages. University of Bristol, UK, 26 April 2008
• Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society, Quebec City, CA, 3 November 2007
• Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Music, Universität Wien, AT, 11 August 2007
• Sexualities, Textualities, Art & Music in Early Modern Italy, University College Cork, IE, 18-19 May 2007
•   Annual Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Music, Cambridge University, UK, 18 July 2006
•   Annual Meeting of the Royal Musical Association, University of Nottingham, UK, 12 July 2006
• Mozart Then and Now:  250th Anniversary Conference, British Library, London, UK, 30 January 2006
• International Symposium on Fanny Hensel and Her Circle, St. Catherine’s College, Oxford University, UK, 23 July 2005
• Music and Sexual Aggression Symposium, International Early Music Festival, Utrecht, NL, 30 August 2001

Participation in round tables and/or sessions chaired at scholarly conferences (since 2001):

• American Musicological Society/Society for Music Theory, Annual Meeting, Indianapolis, IN, 4-7 November 2010
• Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society/Society for Music Theory, Nashville, Tennessee, US, November 2008
• Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Music, Vienna, AT, 10 August 2007
• Sexualities, Textualities, Art & Music in Early Modern Italy, University College Cork, IE, 18-19 May 2007
• Annual Meeting of the Royal Musical Association, University of Nottingham, UK, July 2006
• Annual Meeting of the Royal Musical Association, University of Manchester, UK, 4 November 2005
• International Musicological Society, 17th Congress, Leuven, BE (2 sessions), 3 and 5 August 2002

HONORS, FELLOWSHIPS, GRANTS, AWARDS

National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship at the Newberry Library, 2003-2004

AMS Publication Subvention for Antoine Busnoys: Method, Meaning, and Context in Late Medieval Music (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999; New York: Oxford University Press, 2000)

National Endowment for the Humanities, Fellowship for College Teachers, 1994-95

National Endowment for the Humanities, Summer Stipend, Summer 1994 (declined)

National Endowment for the Humanities, Research Conference Grant, 1991-93: Continuities and Transformations in Musical Culture, 1450-1500: Assessing the Legacy of Antoine Busnoys, 8-11 November 1992, University of Notre Dame

National Endowment for the Humanities, Matching Grant for Continuities and Transformations, 1992 (see above)

Nomination for the Dent Medal of the International Musicological Society and the Royal Musical Association for outstanding contributions to musicology, 1992

American Council of Learned Societies, Fellowship for Recent Recipients of the PhD, 1989-90

National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend, Summer 1989

Alfred Einstein Award of the American Musicological Society, for the most outstanding article by a younger scholar, 1987

American Council of Learned Societies Travel Grant, 1987


National Awards Garnered by Authors of Articles Published under my Editorship of JAMS (1996-98):

1999 Alfred Einstein Award of the AMS: Simon Morrison, “Skryabin and the Impossible,” Journal of the American Musicological Society, 51 (1998).

1998 Alfred Einstein Award of the AMS: Berthold Hoeckner, “Schumann and Romantic Distance,” Journal of the American Musicological Society, 50 (1997).

1998 ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award: Kim Kowalke, “For Those We Love: Hindemith, Whitman, and ‘An American Requiem’,” Journal of the American Musicological Society, 50 (1997).

1997 Alfred Einstein Award of the AMS: Pamela Potter, “Musicology under Hitler,” Journal of the American Musicological Society, 49 (1996)

Further links:

Biography in The New Grove Dictionary:
http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/46972

Interview (in German) as Kaethe-Leichter Gastprofessorin, Vienna, 2007:
http://www.fm5.at/%22It's%20quite%20disturbing%22-%20ein%20Interview/

Alex Ross, A Female Deer? Looking for Sex in the Sound of Music, Lingua Franca, July/August 1994: http://linguafranca.mirror.theinfo.org/9407/ross.html