FEMINIST MUSICOLOGY AND CONTINGENT LABOR
The crisis of contingent labor in the US academy is acute. The American Association of University Professors defines contingent employment as full- or part-time faculty in non-tenure track positions, including adjuncts and graduate student instructors. Their research shows that in 2011 (the latest year for which full data sets are available) three out of every four instructional staff positions?76 percent?were filled on a contingent basis. Such positions offer precarious job security, considerably lower wages than comparable tenure-track jobs, and patchy or non-existent benefits.
The AMS Committee on Women and Gender is organizing a panel on these issues for the annual meeting in Louisville (Nov. 12/15). The panel will explore the impact of contingent labor across a number of social domains such as gender, race, sexuality, class and (dis)ability, and propose ways by which feminist theory and musicology can address the crisis. The alternate format, evening panel session will consist of ten-minute lightning papers followed by discussion. We invite proposals from adjunct faculty, alt-ac workers, graduate students, tenure-track and tenured faculty, teachers and administrators; independent musicologists, theorists, ethnomusicologists and composers. Please send an abstract of ca. 200 words to emily.wilbourne -at- qc.cuny.edu by 5pm EST on Sunday, March 29th; please indicate your current professional status in the body of your email.
