The Sound Collaboratory is a research project that will bring together faculty and students to create new creative partnerships on and off campus to share their insights on the innovative methods and practices they utilize to incorporate sound into their scholarship.
About the Award:
In March 2020, Sonnet Retman (Associate Professor, American Ethnic Studies) published a paper in American Quarterly titled, “Memphis Minnie’s ‘Scientific Sound’: Afro-Sonic Modernity and the Jukebox Era of the Blues." The paper is related Sound Practices, a large-scale collaboration funded by the Simpson Center to support Michelle Habell-Pallán (Professor, Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies), John Vallier (Ethnomusicology Curator, Head Media, UW Libraries), and Sonnet Retman in creating a symposium that will initiate the development of the "Sound Collaboratory.” The Collaboratory is a research project that will bring together faculty and students to create new creative partnerships on and off campus to share their insights on the innovative methods and practices they utilize to incorporate sound into their scholarship.
Retman's paper has won a prestigious award from the American Studies Association: The 2021 Constance M. Rourke Prize. This prize is awarded annually to the best article published in American Quarterly that was written by a current member of the American Studies Association. The award honors Constance M. Rourke, an influential scholar and educator who wrote widely in the fields of popular culture, humor, and cultural history. Rourke taught at Vassar College and was foundational in the development of American studies as an intellectual field.
Please join us in congratulating Retman and the Sound Practices team!
Read the Full Article:
You can read the full article through Project MUSE by logging in through an affiliated institution. Full article citation and link to article below:
Retman, Sonnet. "Memphis Minnie's "Scientific Sound": Afro-Sonic Modernity and the Jukebox Era of the Blues." American Quarterly, vol. 72 no. 1, 2020, p. 75-102. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/aq.2020.0004.
C.R. Grimmer (she/they)
C. R. Grimmer is a poet and scholar from Southeast Michigan's Metro-Detroit area. C. R. received their Ph.D. in Literature and Cultural Studies at the University of Washington (UW) as well as their M.F.A. in Creative Writing and M.A. in English Literature at Portland State University (PSU). They are the author of The Lyme Letters, which won the Walt McDonald First Book Award from Texas Tech University Press.