REWID · Rethinking Widowhood: Women, Loss, and Liberation in Nineteenth-Century Musical Culture
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2021-03-01 → 2024-05-31
- EU contribution
- €257,561
- Participants
- 2
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Rethinking Widowhood: Women, Loss, and Liberation in Nineteenth-Century Musical Culture
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.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Whereas past histories of European music have been presented largely in terms of an all-male endeavour, this interdisciplinary project will take the lived experiences of widows as an impetus for developing a new kind of historiography, framed in terms of the history of emotions, that restores women’s individual agency and artistic integrity to the music-historical record. The research will introduce a paradigm shift to gender studies in musicology in two particular respects: first, by rethinking the ways in which widowhood proved to be a catalyst for creative endeavour that was a product both of loss and of a sense of liberation; and secondly, by engaging with widowhood as a lens through which to reconsider the contributions of women who have been overlooked in the dominant narratives of music history. In doing so, the project will address major European policy objectives, particularly those recommended by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 5 and 10, to promote gender equality and to reduce social inequalities in all aspects of society.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND MAYNOOTH · MaynoothCoordinatorIreland
- THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA · OaklandUnited States
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union