Diversifying Music Theory: From Theory to Practice

No wonder, then, that it has been easier for everyone in our nation to accept a critical written discourse about racism that is usually read only by those who have some degree of educational privilege than it is for us to create constructive ways to talk about white supremacy and racism, to find constructive actions that go beyond talk. -bell hooks, Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope Throughout her lengthy career, bell hooks (1952-2021) often criticized academics (and academia writ large) for the manifold ways in which they have sustained what she termed the "imperialist white-supremacist capitalist heteropatriarchy."· 1 In her essay "Talking Race and Racism," hooks offers a scathing rejoinder to those who write and speak about the ills of discrimination but avoid taking direct action. A number of scholars, many with expertise in feminist theory and critical race theory, have been addressing these problems for decades in their activism and research.3 Those who are familiar with this history extending back to the 1990s might well wonder what concrete and lasting changes will actually arise from this more recent flurry of post2019 awareness. The programs for the 2020 and 2021 SMT annual meetings were more wide-ranging than ever before.4 Project Spectrum organized two symposia held before the 2018 and 2020 joint AMS/SMT conferences (a third symposium is planned for fall 2022), and three of its founding members-Clifton Boyd, Catrina Kim, and Alissandra Reed-co-delivered the keynote address for the 2020 Annual Meeting of the Music Theory Society of New York State.5 The Composers of Color Resource Project is building a database of analytical notes, annotated scores, and lesson materials for teachers of music theory.6 Several forthcoming pedagogical books focus on music by Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) and non-Western composers, such as Expanding the Canon: Black Composers in the Music Theory Classroom (Hoag, forthcoming) and The Engaged Musician: Theory and Analysis for the 21st Century (Abrahams et ah, forthcoming). [...]Kristi Hardman's review of Dylan Robinson's book Hungry Listening: Resonant Theory for Indigenous Sound Studies, commissioned and edited by reviews editor Megan L. Lavengood, closes the volume.