Beverley Diamond | Pasts and Possibilities: Audio Recording and/as Action

Event details

Speaker: Beverley Diamond (Memorial University, Newfoundland)

Date: 18 November 2020

Time: 4.15-5.45 pm

Online

About this seminar

This chapter focuses on the ways that music is created and/or used as an “actor” in itself – that is, as a force that engages with opinions, events (predicted or not), decisions, and developments in various social spheres. Music may be associated with commentary and criticism, or directed at change, or it may be a way to convey emotional responses and to process events or decisions. These are aspects of citizenship, with all its rights, responsibilities and imagined possibilities. In this chapter I focus on the ways in which audio recording inflects relating, remembering, feeling, and acting as a citizen of Newfoundland or Labrador. How do individuals, families, communities or other groups respond in the creative work of recorded sound to the decisions and events that shape their lives? Does audio recording, as both a process and a commodity, shape social engagement in ways that differ from live performance?

Beverley Diamond joins us to discuss a chapter from her forthcoming book entitled On Record: Audio Recording, Mediation and Citizenship in Newfoundland & Labrador.

Staff and students of the University of Edinburgh can access the text here: 

Reading for Beverley Diamond's talk (EASE login required) (secured)

If you're joining us from outside the University of Edinburgh, we will send you the chapter by email when you register for the event.

Biography

Beverley Diamond was the first Canada Research Chair in Ethnomusicology at Memorial University of Newfoundland, where she established and directed the Research Centre for the Study of Music, Media, and Place (MMaP) from 2003-2015. In collaboration with communities in Newfoundland and Labrador, as well as other parts of Canada, she published the Back on Track CD series that made archival material available together with extensive documentation.  She also organized many symposia, concerts and international conferences. Diamond is known for her research on gender issues, Canadian historiography, and indigenous music cultures. Her research on indigenous music has ranged from studies of traditional Inuit and First Nations song traditions and Saami joik, to indigenous audio recording, traditional protocols for access and ownership, and, most recently, expressive culture in relation to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on residential schools in Canada. Most recently she co-edited Aboriginal Music in Contemporary Canada. Echoes and Exchanges (McGill-Queen’s UP, 2012) which received a Choice Academic Book award. Among her other publications are Native American Music in Eastern North America (OUP, 2008) and Music and Gender (co-edited, U Illinois P, 2000). Beverely Diamond served as the President of the Society for Ethnomusicology from 2013-15. She was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 2008, named a Trudeau Fellow (2009-12), and a Member of the Order of Canada (2013). In 2014, she was awarded the Gold Medal by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, their highest honour in recognition of the quality and imact of her work.

Access details

This meeting will be held on Zoom. Join Zoom Meeting (external link)

Meeting ID: 856 0132 4921

You need a password to access this meeting.

Students and staff of the University of Edinburgh can find the password here:

Password for Zoom meeting (EASE login required)

If you are not a member of the Universiy of Edinburgh, please register in advance on Eventbrite to receive the password:

Register for this Seminar on Eventbrite (external link)