Her Music Academia: A Public Scholarship Initiative

Abstract

As a subfield of music theory scholarship, public music theory engages audiences outside of the academy. The onset of the internet has additionally provided new open-access media and sites for music theoretical inquiry. Two ways in which public music theory exists on the internet are in the form of podcasting and blogging. In this essay, I explain the reasons I started my podcast and blog (both titled Her Music Academia), the ways the work has taken shape over the years, and what I have learned so far. Through these projects, I seek to introduce the process of becoming a music theorist to a public audience, highlight my own experience as a Black woman in academia, and create a sense of community around music theory. I continue the practice of learning in public by documenting the development of my research and ideas about music, and I encourage my audience to similarly embark on their own process of learning about music theory. Ultimately, Her Music Academia challenges academic music theorists to reevaluate its definition of scholarship and to consider how these two opposing methods of performing scholarship differ in goals and outcomes.