« In music, we can come out without coming, 
we can reveal without saying a word. »

(Koestenbaum, 1993, p. 189-190)

In 1989, Susan McClary wrote, “Steblin’s article forces us to reflect once again on why, how and even if musicology should address topics connected with homosexuality. […] Do we really need to know about a composer’s sex life? Does this kind of knowledge matter?” (McClary, 1993, pp. 84–85): the musicologist analyses here the discussion opposing Solomon and Steblin in the early 1990s around Schubert’s presumed homosexuality. This controversy, a reflection of post-Stonewall times, tends to show that the freedom of speech now prevails in academic fields. Indeed, since the early 1970s, the first gender studies have echoed the works of Michel Foucault (Mazaleigue-Labaste, 2019) and have opened new perspectives on the links between sexuality, society and art. Thereafter, the major works of Judith Butler (1990), Eve Kosofsky (1990) and Teresa de Lauretis (1991) have spread these types of questions far beyond the academic field. 

In this fruitful period during which queer studies were structured, musicologists began to think and write about this subject. In the USA, Maynard Solomon opened the debate with an article published in American Imago, a psychoanalysis journal, in which he offered an explicit interpretation of Mein Traum by Franz Schubert as a homosexual fantasy tale (1981, p. 147). A few years later, in 1988, during the annual conference of the American Musicological Society (Fuller, Whitesell, 2002, p. 6), and then in an article as famous as it was contested—“Franz Schubert and the Peacocks of Benvenuto Cellini”—Solomon made new assumptions (1989) even though the demonstration suffers, as Rita Steblin (1993) argued in the journal 19th-Century Music dedicated to the question (Kramer, 1993), examining several historical problems. 

The liveliness of these discussions proves how much the subject interests the scientific community. In this context, the AMS organized a “Gay and Lesbian Study” panel for the first time in 1989. Several books and articles, such as Feminine Endings (Susan McClary, 1991), Musicology and Difference (Ruth Solie, 1993) and Queering the Pitch (Philip Brett, Elizabeth Wood and Gary C. Thomas, 1994) were published in the next decade, laying down the foundation of gay, lesbian and queer musicological studies. And, since 1997, the AMS’s LGBT Study Group has sponsored the Philip Brett Award, which “honors exceptional musicological work in the field of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender/transsexual studies”.

A second generation of musicologists sensitive to issues of gender and sexuality came of age in the early 21st century, publishing many studies, sometimes questionable in the authors’ own words, which explored the sexuality of composers such as Hildegarde von Bingen (Zimmerman, 2000, pp. 514–515), Frédéric Chopin (Weber, 2021), Ethel Smyth (Wood, 1993), Piotr Ilitch Tchaïkovski (Jackson, 1999), Edward Elgar (Adams, 2000), Maurice Ravel (Ivry, 2000; Whitesell, 2002; Puri, 2007; Whitesell, 2010; Puri, 2010), Francis Poulenc (Shiflett, 2020; Lacombe, 2013, pp. 386–389), Pierre Boulez, Sylvano Bussotti (Osmond-Smith, Attinello, 2007) and Claude Vivier (Rhéaume, 2021). However, these research studies are not limited to biographical or political thought. They try to understand issues such as the following: the influence of a queer lifestyle—overt or concealed—upon the artist’s production, considering a camp perspective in the choreographic works of Poulenc (Moore, 2012), studying gender performance in lyrical art, looking for homoerotism in the four-hand piano playing of Schubert and colleagues (Kopelson, 1996; Brett, 1997) or studying the music in Walt Whitman’s poems (Adams, 2000). 

Recently, works by Susan McClary and Wayne Koestenbaum were translated by the Philharmonie de Paris (McClary, 2015; Koestenbaum, 2019), showing that the subject has begun to interest a non-academic public. However, original studies in the French-speaking world remain scarce. Since the beginning of the 21^stcentury and the rise of gender studies, many French musicologists have developed feminist perspectives, such as Raphaëlle Legrand (co-founder of the CReIM; 2015; 2019), Catherine Deutsch (2018) and Hyacinthe Ravet (2011). As editorial committee of Transposition highlighted in a special queer and contemporary music studies volume (2013), these kinds of analyses (gender and domination) are essential. At the same time, lying at the crossroads of literary studies, history, sociology, political science, and the history of the arts, and as an extension of Florence Tamagne (2000; 2001; 2016), research by Teresa de Lauretis (2007) and Sam Bourcier (2021) on punk scenes, techno and metal are now at the centre of queer interrogation on topics such as the empowerment process, corporification and community socialization (Taylor, 2012; Laverdière, 2015; Barrière, 2021). In this respect, French research on popular music is more favourable to intersectionality than research on classical music. Why is this the case?

In the wake of the second generation of English gay, lesbian and queer studies, we aim to promote the questioning of French musicological practices, and then to produce new thoughts about composers, works and aesthetics, specifically in the classical music area. Would the scarcity of French musicological research dedicated to these issues be the result of a phenomenon of invisibilization? This epistemological point of view will allow us to reconsider the quote by Susan McClary: to what degree could the disclosure or the concealment of a sexual orientation or gender identity enlighten musicological perspectives?

Focus

We invite proposals on:

Focus 1 — To say or not to say?
Epistemological relevance of unveiling. 

Focus 2 — Closing the closet. 
Study of resistance and systems of invisibilization of sexual orientation and gender identity. 

Focus 3 — Converging. 
Musicology, interdisciplinarity and intersectionality. What about queer methodologies applied to musicology?

Focus 4 — Stepping out of the line.
Affirmation of identity, exploration of the margins, philosophical and political issues.

Focus 5 — Analysing.
Case studies addressing the issues raised above.

Deadline for proposals: March 15, 2023.

Each speaker will have 30 minutes for the paper (in French or English) plus 10 minutes for discussion. Please send an abstract (PDF or Word file) for paper that have not been previsouly published of no more than 500 words and a short biographical note to: jason.julliot@gmail.com and jeremy.michot@gmail.com. 

Indicative bibliography

• Abbate Carolyn, « Musicologie, politiques culturelles et identité sexuelle », in Jean-Jacques Nattiez (dir.), Musiques : une encyclopédie pour le xxi^e siècle, t. 2 « Les savoirs musicaux », 2004, p. 822-832.
• Adams Byron, « The « Dark Saying » of the Enigma: Homoeroticism and the Elgarian Paradox », 19th-Century Music, 2000, vol. 23, n^o 3, p. 218‑235.
• –––, « “No Armpits, Please, We’re British”: Whitman and English Music, 1884–1936 », in Lawrence Kramer (dir.), Walt Whitman and Modern Music: War, Desire, and the Trials of Nationhood, New York, Garland, 2000, p. 25‑42.
• Barrière Louise, « Circulations, appropriations et invisibilisations : trajectoire du concept d’intersectionnalité dans les mouvements punk-féministes américains et français (1990-2019) », consulté le 14 février 2022, URL : https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03104975.
• Blackmer Corrine E. et Smith Patricia Julia (dir.), En Travesti : Women, Gender Subversion, Opera, New York, Columbia University Press, 1995.
• Bourcier Sam, Queer Zones : la trilogie, Paris, Éditions Amsterdam, 2021.
• Brett Philip, « Piano Four-Hands: Schubert and the Performance of Gay Male Desire », 19th-Century Music, 1997, vol. 21, n^o 2, p. 149‑176.
• –––, Benjamin Britten: Peter Grimes, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983.
• Brett Philip, Wood Elizabeth et Thomas Gary C. (dir.), Queering the Pitch: the New Gay and Lesbian Musicology, 2nde éd., New York, Routledge, 1994.
• Butler Judith, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, New York, Routledge, Routledge classics, 1990.
• Collectif, « Musique et théorie queer », Transposition, 2013, n^o 3.
• De Lauretis Teresa, « Culture populaire, fantasmes publics et privés : féminité et fétichisme dans « Mr. Butterfly » de David Cronenberg », in Théorie queer et cultures populaires : de Foucault à Cronenberg, Sam Bourcier (trad.), Paris, La Dispute, 2007.
• Deutsch Catherine, « Écrire sur les musiciennes, une question de genre ? Les recherches sur les musiciennes à la Société française de musicologie et dans sa Revue », Revue de musicologie, 104/1-2 (2018), p. 305-326.
• –––, « Un siècle de rapports de genre en musicologie. Les femmes musicologues à la Société française de musicologie et dans sa Revue », Revue de musicologie, 104/1-2 (2018), p. 773-802.
• Escoffier Jeffrey, « Generations and Paradigms », Journal of Homosexuality, 1993, vol. 24, n^o 1‑2, p. 7‑26.
• Fuller Sophie et Whitesell Lloyd (dir.), Queer episodes in music and modern identity, Urbana [Illinois], University of Illinois Press, 2002.
• Hicks Michael, « The Imprisonment of Henry Cowell », Journal of the American Musicological Society, 1991, vol. 44, n^o 1, p. 92‑119.
• Hindley Clifford, « Homosexual Self-Affirmation and Self-Oppression in Two Britten Operas », The Musical Quarterly, 1992, vol. 76, n^o 2, p. 143‑168.
• Holsinger Bruce Wood, « The Flesh of the Voice: Embodiment and the Homoerotics of Devotion in the Music of Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) », Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 1993, vol. 19, n^o 1, p. 92‑125.
• Huebner Steven, « Francis Poulenc’s « dialogues des Carmélites »: faith, ideology, love », Music & Letters, 2016, vol. 97, n^o 2, p. 277‑315.
• Ivry Benjamin, Maurice Ravel: A Life, New York, Welcome Rain Publishers, 2000.
• Jackson Timothy L., Tchaikovsky, “Symphony no. 6” (Pathétique), Cambridge / New York, Cambridge University Press, 1999.
• Koestenbaum Wayne, The Queen’s Throat: Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire, Poseidon Press, 1993.
• –––, Anatomie de la folle lyrique, Paris, Philharmonie de Paris / Cité de la musique, 2019.
• Kopelson Kevin, Beethoven’s Kiss: Pianism, Perversion, and the Mastery of Desire, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1996.
• Kramer Lawrence, Franz Schubert: Sexuality, Subjectivity, Song, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998.
• –––, « Schubert: Music, Sexuality, Culture », 19th-Century Music, 1993, vol. 17, n^o 1, p. 3‑4.
• Lacombe Hervé, Francis Poulenc, Paris, Fayard, 2013.
• Laverdière Gabriel, « L’esthétique rock queer, de C.R.A.Z.Y. à Xavier Dolan », Nouvelles vues, 2015, n^o 16.
• Legrand Raphaëlle, « Orlando barocco : variations sur le sexe d’un personnage lyrique », Evelyne Peyre, Joëlle Wiels (dir.), Mon corps a-t-il un sexe ? Sur le genre, dialogues entre biologie et sciences sociales, Paris, La Découverte, 2015, p. 171-186.
• –––, « Sexage des éléments musicaux, théorie genrée, le cas de Jean-Philippe Rameau », Alban Ramaut, Mélanie Traversier (dir.), La musique a-t-elle un genre ?, Paris, Éditions de la Sorbonne, 2019, p. 65-80.
• Martel, Frédéric, Le Rose et le Noir. Les homosexuels en France depuis 1968, Paris, Seuil, 1996. 
• Martel, Frédéric, Fiertés et préjugés, la révolution gay, Paris, Bouquins, 2022. 
• Mazaleigue-Labaste Julie, « L’historicisation de l’homosexualité dans La volonté de savoir : une des voies d’appropriation de Foucault par les études de genre », Genre, sexualité & société, 1 juin 2019, n^o 21.
• McClary Susan, « Music and Sexuality: On the Steblin/Solomon Debate », 19th-Century Music, 1993, vol. 17, n^o 1, p. 83‑88.
• –––, Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality, Londres, University of Minnesota Press, 1991.
• –––, Ouverture féministe : musique, genre, sexualité, Paris, Philharmonie de Paris / Cité de la musique, 2015.
• Moore Christopher, « Camp in Francis Poulenc’s Early Ballets », The Musical Quarterly, 2012, vol. 95, n^o 2/3, p. 299‑342.
• Oakley Ann, Sex, gender and society, Londres, Temple Smith, 1972.
• Osmond-Smith David et Attinello P., « Gay Darmstadt: Flamboyance and Rigour at the Summer Courses for New Music », Contemporary Music Review, 2007, vol. 26, n^o 1, p. 105‑114.
• Puri Michael J., « Memory, pastiche and aestheticism in Ravel and Proust », in Deborah Mawer (dir.), Ravel studies, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2010, vol. 1, p. 56‑73.
• –––, « Dandy, Interrupted: Sublimation, Repression, and Self-Portraiture in Maurice Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé (1909–1912) », Journal of the American Musicological Society, 2007, vol. 60, n^o 2, p. 317‑372.
• Ravet Hyacinthe, Musiciennes. Enquête sur les femmes et la musique, Paris, Éditions Autrement, 2011.
• Rhéaume Martine, « “Je ne m’apitoie plus sur le fait“ : homosexualité et engagement identitaire dans les écrits et prises de parole de Claude Vivier », Circuit. Musiques contemporaines, 2021, vol 31, n°1, p.27-41.
• Robinson Paul, « The Opera Queen: A Voice from the Closet », Cambridge Opera Journal, 1994, vol. 6, n^o 3, p. 283‑291.
• Rubin Gayle, « L’économie politique du sexe : transactions sur les femmes et systèmes de sexe/genre », Les cahiers du CEDREF. Centre d’enseignement, d’études et de recherches pour les études féministes, 1975 1998, n^o 7, p. 3‑81.
• Sedgwick Eve Kosofsky, Epistemology of the Closet, University of California Press, 1990.
• Shiflett Campbell, « “Au Fond d’un Placard”: Allusion, Narrative, and Queer Experience in Poulenc’s Ier Nocturne. », Journal of Musicology, 2020, vol. 37, n^o 2, p. 197‑230.
• Solie Ruth A, Musicology and Difference: Gender and Sexuality in Music Scholarship, Berkeley / Los Angeles / Londres, University of California Press, 1993.
• Solomon Maynard, « Franz Schubert and the Peacocks of Benvenuto Cellini », 19th-Century Music, 1 avril 1989, vol. 12, n^o 3, p. 193‑206.
• –––, « Franz Schubert’s « My Dream » », American Imago, 1981, vol. 38, n^o 2, p. 137‑154.
• Steblin Rita, « The Peacock’s Tale: Schubert’s Sexuality Reconsidered », 19th-Century Music, 1993, vol. 17, n^o 1, p. 5‑33.
• Tamagne Florence, Histoire de l’homosexualité en Europe. Berlin, Londres, Paris. 1919-1939, Paris, Le Seuil, coll. « L’Univers historique », 2000.
• –––, Mauvais genre ? Une histoire des représentations de l’homosexualité, Paris, Éditions de La Martinière, 2001.
• –––, « ‘Groupies’. Expérimentations sexuelles, transgressions de genre et stigmatisation sociale des fans de rock des années 1950 aux années 1970 », Dissidences, numéro spécial « Sexualités en révolutions, XIXe-XXIe siècles », vol. 15, mars 2016.
• Taylor Jodie, Playing it queer: popular music, identity and queer world-making, Bern / New York, Peter Lang, 2012.
• Weber Moritz, « Chopins Männer », Itamar. Revista de investigación musical: territorios para el arte, 2021, vol. 7, p. 428‑475.
• Whitesell Lloyd, « Erotic Ambiguity in Ravel’s Music », in Deborah Mawer (dir.), Ravel studies, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2010, vol. 1, p. 74‑91.
• –––, « Ravel’s way », in Sophie Fuller et Lloyd Whitesell (dir.), Queer episodes in music and modern identity, Urbana, [Illinois], University of Illinois Press, 2002, vol. 1/, pp. 49‑78.
• Wittig Monique, La pensée straight, Paris, Éditions Amsterdam, 1978.
• Wood Elizabeth, « Lesbian Fugue: Ethel Smyth’s Contrapuntal Arts », in Ruth A. Solie (dir.), Musicology and Difference: Gender and Sexuality in Music Scholarship, Berkeley / Los Angeles / Londres, University of California Press, 1993, p. 164‑183.
• Wolf Stacy, « The Queer Pleasures of Mary Martin and Broadway: The Sound of Music as a Lesbian Musical », Modern Drama, 1996, vol. 39, n^o 1, p. 51‑63.
• Zimmerman Bonnie, Lesbian Histories and Cultures: An Encyclopedia, Taylor & Francis, 2000.