In this talk, ethnomusicologist Sean Williams draws from her long-term interest in the in-between to offer a talk on the application of a single theoretical issue—liminality—to musical research, listening, performing, and writing. This talk will highlight musical expressions, particularly song traditions, in connection to important cultural keystone species of the sea; transgressive aspects of performing in an endangered language; and the position of the migrant never fully at home in one place or another. In each case, it is precisely the marginalized people—musicians, intersectional folks, immigrants, poets, multilingual people, spiritual intermediaries, and other people on the edges—whose identity is more central than marginal. By focusing attention on how musical practices can offer systems of access and cross boundaries through musical intermediaries, the talk may allow participants to consider their own work through a different lens. 

Bio: 

Sean Williams is Professor of Ethnomusicology and Irish Studies at The Evergreen State College in Washington State, where she has taught interdisciplinary connections to music for 35 years. Her research has leaned strongly on her interests in Irish-language singing, Brazilian samba, and Sundanese music of West Java. She has written and/or edited nine books, including the award-winning Bright Star of the West: Joe Heaney, Irish Song-Man (with Lillis Ó Laoire), two cookbooks, and textbooks on world music and Irish traditional music. Her current book, titled Music at the Threshold from the Sacred to the Dangerous, will be released on Bealtaine, and her next book with Lillis Ó Laoire will be about the songs of Tory Island. Her many articles explore issues of humor, revivals, competition, spirituality, language, pedagogy, grief, white nationalism in the US, food, poetry writing, and liminality.