The Society for Music Theory (SMT) recently announced Musicology and Medieval Studies graduate student Flannery McIntyre as a winner of their dissertation fellowship. The award is intended to recognize and foster excellent research in music theory by helping highly qualified PhD students to complete their dissertations.
Flannery’s project, titled "Music and the Materiality of Knowledge in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages,” was one of two dissertations recognized by SMT. McIntyre describes her dissertation as follows: “My project proposes an alternative narrative for the role of music in Late Antique and Early Medieval culture. Whereas music in this period (fourth to tenth century) has traditionally been understood as a precursor to the liturgical standardization and the development of music notation in the ninth century, such a teleological focus obscures many other facets of musical activity that flourished in the preceding centuries. This emphasis is all but inevitable given previous scholars’ concentration on textual readings and musical reconstruction. My approach, by contrast, centers material culture, allowing for a larger and more eclectic source base, which, in turn, allows me to ask a more varied set of questions. Through these materials, which include canonical music sources alongside historical, literary, and archaeological materials not previously studied by musicologists, I show that music was used as a tool for scientific inquiry, a means of political legitimization, a way to establish women’s intellectual authority, and a bridge between classical and medieval intellectual traditions. While scholars have long since stopped pejoratively referring to this period as “the dark ages,” its effects on musical scholarship are still palpable. My dissertation dispels this myth of a musical and intellectual lack, illuminating the richness and multivalence of early medieval music.”
To read more about this award and the Society for Music Theory, visit their website. The department congratulates Flannery on this well-earned recognition of her research!