Rethinking Widowhood: Women, Loss, and Liberation in Nineteenth-Century Musical Culture

Project Information

REWID

Grant agreement ID: 894071

DOI

10.3030/894071

Project closed

EC signature date 24 June 2020

Start date 1 March 2021

End date 31 May 2024

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 257 561,28

EU contribution

€ 257 561,28

Coordinated by

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND MAYNOOTH
Ireland

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - REWID (Rethinking Widowhood: Women, Loss, and Liberation in Nineteenth-Century Musical Culture)

Reporting period: 2023-03-01 to 2024-02-29

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The MCSA ‘Rethinking Widowhood: Women, Loss, and Liberation in Nineteenth-Century Musical Culture’ (REWID) confronts the challenge of historicising widowhood (a topic often overlooked or given tangential mention) at the intersection of musicology, gender studies, and the history of emotions. The research tilts the discourse of widowhood from loss of a spouse, or an experience confined to the private realm, to a catalyst for personal and artistic renewal. It thereby offers new ways of contextualising the impact of death on creative endeavour, not only in musical contexts but across the arts and humanities more generally.

REWID contributes to society in several respects: first, by promoting gender equality and reducing social inequalities, as recommended by the United Nation Sustainable Development Goals 5 and 10; and secondly, by developing a framework for discussing experiences of death, loss, and grief that affect society at large. It traces changing attitudes towards widowhood through the ages, focusing on the socio-cultural implications for women, and foregrounds diverse ways of navigating loss that resonate in the twenty-first century.

REWID accomplished three overall objectives: 1) to reframe the gendered history of widowhood in musical cultures of the long nineteenth century (c. 1789 to 1914); 2) to develop a framework for understanding loss as a catalyst for self-renewal; and 3) to recenter the topics of death and grief within music-historical narratives.

Alongside this, REWID established a rich agenda of dissemination activities through founding the Women in Global Music Research and Industry Network (www.womeninglobalmusic.org). This brought together an international contingent of scholars and practitioners, with events ranging from online presentations and discussions to in-person festivals and conferences.

Taken together, these outputs have been 1) central to recentering women’s creativity through the ages and around the globe; and 2) enabled the researcher to hone his skills across research, leadership, and administration.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

REWID comprised an active agenda of research and writing, archival trips, teaching, graduate supervision, and public engagement. Its results and dissemination activities include:

Research
The results include a forthcoming chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Musical Biography and Life-Writing and a draft (in progress) of a sole-authored book on music and widowhood. The research was disseminated through a keynote lecture at the 30th West Coast Conference of Music Theory and Analysis (2022); at major international conferences, including the 2022 Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society and the 2024 Annual Conference of the Society for Musicology in Ireland; and through outreach initiatives with the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of California, Irvine (2023).

Teaching and mentorship
The Fellow disseminated the research through two new courses at the University of California, Irvine: ‘Women and the Piano in the Nineteenth Century’ (undergraduate) and ‘Public Musicology’ (graduate); and through guest lectures at Maynooth University. He also joined the supervisory committees of several PhD projects and participated in numerous professional-development workshops, among them the ‘Careers Forum’ at the 2024 Annual Postgraduate Conference of the Society for Musicology in Ireland.

Public engagement and wider dissemination
In 2021, the Fellow co-founded the Women in Global Music Network (WIGM) – a cross-sectoral platform that promotes women’s voices through research, performance, and social advocacy. In 2023, he chaired the International Conference Women at the Piano: 1848–1970, a four-day hybrid event that generated new dialogues between scholars and practitioners from around the globe (and is currently co-editing two related volumes of essays), and more recently hosted ‘Finding a Voice’ (2024), a collaboration between WIGM and the annual Finding a Voice festival in Ireland celebrating International Women’s Day. WIGM’s activities have enriched the global reach of REWID, with its results disseminated through collaborations across Europe, the USA, and Southeast Asia.

Across research, teaching, and public engagement REWID has enhanced approaches to women in music, and exposed what is lost when they are excluded from academic study and concert life or relegated to the margins.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

REWID pushes the frontiers of research on women in music (and music studies more generally) in several ways. The focus on widowhood sheds light on an unusual aspect of women’s creativity that has hitherto been overlooked or given tangential mention in biographical studies. The research encourages bold ways of thinking about women’s experiences – across geographies and disciplinary boundaries – and pioneers an integrated model whereby their musical activities are explored on equal footing with those of their male contemporaries. This framing moves beyond the cycles of erasure that have dominated the study of women in music and foregrounds their innovation within discourses that have long been framed as all-male. REWID also advances the larger mission of understanding musical creativity not only as a corpus of works, but shaped also by a nexus of thoughts, feelings, and personal interactions. The project thus contributes not only to scholarly discourse, where the results will inform future research on women in music, but also to wider understanding of the human condition.

Anticipated impacts include: 1) increased emphasis on women in music across research, university courses, and in the number of students pursuing individual projects in this area; 2) a deeper awareness of the impact of death and loss on artistic creativity; 3) increased discussions of these areas within and beyond the academy; and 4) enhanced public perception of women’s creativity across music and the arts.

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