Sherrie Tucker
International & Interdisciplinary Studies - American StudiesSherrie Tucker (Professor, American Studies, University of Kansas) is the author of Dance Floor Democracy: the Social Geography of Memory at the Hollywood Canteen (Duke, 2014), Swing Shift: "All-Girl" Bands of the 1940s (Duke, 2000) and co-editor, with Nichole T. Rustin, of Big Ears: Listening for Gender in Jazz Studies (Duke, 2008). She is a member of two major collaborative research initiatives: International Institute of Critical Improvisation Studies and Improvisation, Community, and Social Practice (for which she served as facilitator for the Improvisation, Gender, and the Body research area) both funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She is a founding member of the Melba Liston Research Collective, a member of the AUMI (Adaptive Use Musical Instrument) research team of the Deep Listening Institute, and founding member of AUMI-KU InterArts, one of six member institutions of the AUMI Research Consortium. She was the Louis Armstrong Visiting Professor at the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University in 2004-2005, where she was a member of the Columbia Jazz Study Group. With Randal M. Jelks, she co-edits the journal American Studies. She serves with Deborah Wong and Jeremy Wallach as Series Editors for the Music/Culture Series at Wesleyan University Press.
Education
Ph.D., History of Consciousness, University of California, Santa Cruz
M.A., Women's Studies, San Francisco State University
M.A., Creative Writing, San Francisco State University
B.A., Creative Writing, San Francisco State University
Teaching Interests
- Jazz studies
- Improvisation studies
- Gender
- Feminist theory
- Theories of race and ethnicity
- Queer theory
- Cultural Studies
- Oral history
- Popular culture
- Theories of sexuality
- Disability studies
Selected Publications
Haaheim, K. Stewart, J. Tucker, S. & Williams, P. (2017). AUMI-Futurism: the Elsewhere and "Elsewhen" of (Un)Rolling the Boulder and Turning the Page . Music and Arts in Action, 6(1). http://musicandartsinaction.net/index.php/maia/issue/view/15
Tucker, S. (2017). poem for for too many brilliant scholars, not enough of whom are with us today. Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture, 21, 1-2.
Dvorak, A. & Tucker, S. (2017). The Adaptive Use Musical Instrument (AUMI): A Useful App for Inclusive Practice. Imagine: Music Therapy, 8(1), 48-50. https://issuu.com/ecmt_imagine/docs/imagine_8_1__2017/48
Tucker, S. (2016). ‘Don’t Explain’: A Billie Holiday Book That Compels Us to Listen Instead. Common Reader, https://commonreader.wustl.edu/c/dont-explain/
Tucker, S. & Knauer, W. (2016). A Conundrum is a Woman-in-Jazz: Enduring Improvisations on the Categorical Exclusions of Being Included. In , Gender and identity in Jazz (pp. 241-262). Germany: Wolke Verlag Hofheim.
Tucker, S. Maultsby, P. & Burnim, M. (2016). Jazz History Remix: Black Women from 'Enter' to 'Center'. In , Issues in African American Music (pp. 256-269). New York: Routledge.
Tucker, S. Heyen, J. Sun Kim, C. Miller, L. Oliveros, P. Rolnick, N. Tomaz, C. Whalen, D. Waterman, E. & Siddall, G. (2016). Stretched Boundaries: Improvising Across Abilities. In , Negotiated Moments: Improvisation, Sound, and Subjectivity (pp. 181-198). Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Tucker, S. (2015). Where is the Jazz in Jazzercise? Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture, 19(2015), 18-26.
Tucker, S. (2014). Dance Floor Democracy: The Social Geography of Memory at the Hollywood Canteen, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Tucker, S. & Walser, R. (2014). It Don't Mean a Thing if it Ain't in the History Books (reprint, excerpt of Swing Shift: 'All-Girl' Bands of the 1940s). In , Keeping Time: Readings in Jazz History, 2nd Edition (pp. 111-118). New York: Oxford University Press.
Hairston-O'Connell, M. & Tucker, S. (2014). Not One to Toot Her Own Horn(?): Melba Liston’s Oral Histories and Classroom Presentations. Black Music Research Journal, 34(1), 121-158.
Tucker, S. & Early, G. (2013). Swing: from Time to Torque (Dance Floor Democracy at the Hollywood Canteen). Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 142(4), 82-97.
Tucker, S. (2009). Beyond the Brass Ceiling: Dolly Jones Trumpets Modernity in Oscar Micheaux's Swing! Jazz Perspectives, 3(1), 3-34.
Rustin, N. T., & Tucker, S. (2008). Big Ears: Listening for Gender in Jazz Studies, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Tucker, S. (2008). When Did Jazz Go Straight?: A Queer Question For Jazz Studies. Critical Studies in Improvisation/Etudes critiques en improvisation, 4(2). http://www.criticalimprov.com/article/view/850/1411
Tucker, S. (2007). Telling Performances: Jazz History Remembered and Remade by the Women in the Band. In , Unequal Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in U.S. Women's History(4th ed.) (pp. 466-477). New York: Routledge.
Tucker, S. (2005). Deconstructing the Jazz Tradition: The Subjectless Subject of New Jazz Studies. The Source: Challenging Jazz Criticism, 2, 31-46.
Tucker, S. (2004). A Feminist Perspective on New Orleans Jazz Women. www.nps.gov/jazz/../upload/New_Orleans_Jazzwomen_RS-2.pdf
Tucker, S. Heble, A. & Fischlin, D. (2004). Bordering on Community: Improvising Women Improvising Women-in-Jazz. In , The Other Side of Nowhere: Jazz, Improvisation, and Communities in Dialogue (pp. 244-267). Middletown, CT: Wesleyan.
Tucker, S. Fuller, S. & Whitesell, L. (2002). When Subjects Don't Come Out. In , Queer Episodes in Music and Modern Identity (pp. 293-310). Champaign: University of Illinois Press.
Tucker, S. (2000). Swing Shift: "All-Girl" Bands of the 1940s, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Selected Presentations
(04/21/2018). The Best of Jazz, The Worst of Jazz: Why I Play the Adaptive Use Musical Instrument. Beyond Genre: Jazz and Popular Music. Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. Available Here
Miller, L. & Tucker, S. . (11/04/2017). AUMI: Improvisation across Abilities in Collaboration and Community. Legacies of Pauline Oliveros. Brooklyn College, New York
Haaheim, K. & Tucker, S. . (10/21/2017). Improvising Inclusive Communities. International Symposium on Assistive Technology for Music and Art. EMPAC, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Tucker, S. . (09/01/2017). The Best of Jazz, The Worst of Jazz: Why I've Been Playing the Adaptive Use Musical Instrument. Re/Sounding Jazz. Rhythm Changes, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Tucker, S. . (01/21/2017). Jim Crow Away From Home: Dance Floor Democracy at Three California USO's. "World War II and the Home Front in Southern California," Historical Society of Southern California Annual Conference. University of Laverne, California. Available Here
Abbey, D. Sherrie, T. Kip, H. & Elizabeth, B. . (04/09/2016). "'Do you AUMI?' Using the Adaptive Use Musical Instrument (AUMI) in Clinical and Research Settings". Midwestern Regional Conference of the American Music Therapy Association . St. Louis, MO
Tucker, S. . (02/05/2016). Dance Floor Democracy: The Social Geography of Memory at the Hollywood Canteen. Music Department, Case Western University. Cleveland, Ohio
Tucker, S. Callahan, D. Randall, A. Hairston-O'Connell, M. McMullen, T. Murchison, G. Wilbourne, E. &, t. . (12/12/2015). Where is the Jazz in Jazzercise? Women, Music, Power: A Celebration of Suzanne G. Cusick's Work. Columbia University, New York.
Tucker, S. . (10/08/2015). A Conundrum is a Woman-in-Jazz: Continual Improvisations on the Categorical Exclusions of Being Included. Judy Tsou Lecture. Skidmore College
Tucker, S. . (10/03/2015). A Conundrum is a Woman-in-Jazz: Continual Improvisations on the Categorical Exclusions of Being Included. JazzForum. Jazzinstitut Darmstadt
Barg, L. Kernodle, T. Spencer, D. Tucker, S. & Hairston-O'Connell, M. . (08/07/2015). The Research Needs of All of Us: Bridging Scarcity with Collaborative Praxis. Feminist Theory and Music XIII. Madison, WI. Available Here
Boresow, E. Dvorak, A. Heffner Hayes, M. & Tucker, S. . (06/07/2015). AUMI-KU InterArts. Improvisation and Community Health. Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Tucker, S. . (11/14/2014). Writing on a Crowded Dance Floor: a Multi-perspectival Approach to Raced and Gendered Bodies in Co-Motion at the Hollywood Canteen (1942-1945) . National Women's Studies Association. San Juan, Puerto Rico
Hairston-O'Connell, M. & Tucker, S. . (11/09/2014). Revisiting Central Avenue through Melba Liston’s Oral Histories . American Studies Association. Los Angeles, California
Mizumura-Pence, R. & Tucker, S. . (07/10/2014). Four Rehearsals and a Performance: Practice Based Research at AUMI-KU InterArts. Deep Listening Art/Science Conference. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York
Tucker, S. Wong, D. Gonzales, M. & . (04/26/2014). Improvising New Communities with Bodies in Motion Roundtable. Pop Conference. Experience Music Project, Seattle, WA
Tucker, S. . (04/04/2014). Dance Floor Democracy: The Social Geography of Memory at the Hollywood Canteen. Music Department, American Culture Department, and Center for the Humanities. Washington University, St. Louis
Tucker, S. . (02/22/2014). Not the Whole Story(ville): Learning from New Orleans Jazzwomen. Carolina Jazz Festival. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC
Tucker, S. . (03/13/2013). Not the Whole Story(ville): Learning from New Orleans Jazzwomen. Sylvia Frey Lecture, New Orleans Center for the Gulf South. . Tulane University, New Orleans, LA.
Selected Grants
Improvising across Abilities: Pauline Oliveros and the Adaptive Use Musical Instrument, University of Kansas, $5,989, (07/01/2018 - 06/30/2019). The GRF supports a significant new phase of a long-term project, as it moves from far-flung research community to book proposal and manuscript. Improvising across Abilities: Pauline Oliveros and the Adaptive Use Musical Instrument is a collaborative volume incorporating insights on inclusivity and democratic praxis from a diverse international group of researchers, musicians (professional and amateur), occupational and music therapists, technologists, students, and teachers, with and without disabilities, who have coalesced around a musical instrument that facilitates musical improvisation among people of all abilities. The AUMI was developed by composer, improviser, humanitarian, Pauline Oliveros (1932-2016) as part of her life’s work in “expanding the improvising community. ” The book will collect and interconnect the findings from a vast network of AUMI improvisation and research sites internationally. Research in Lawrence, Kansas; St. Johns Newfoundland; Poughkeepsie, New York; Montreal, Quebec; and Santiago, Chile suggest that AUMI improvisation may reduce community isolation, facilitate new social relations, and facilitate modes of all-ability sociality with exciting implications for community integration and adaptive aesthetics for new forms of cultural interaction. Improvising across Abilities is a book-length collaborative volume that will be shaped by its contributors, much as AUMI improvisation is shaped by movements of every body of every person who plays it. As AUMI improvisers are well aware, the app/interface uses camera tracking to follow body movements--small, large, wide, narrow, fast, slow--in order to trigger sounds from hundreds of possibilities. I will engage longtime collaborators in an interactive writing process designed to sustain multi-vocal and transdisciplinary perspectives, and convey significant implications of our methods and findings to others. This is not a monograph, nor a conventional edited volume, but a mixed-genre, creative, possibly interactive, form that animates the uniquely adaptive research process across many differences that continues to be such a crucial part of the AUMI Project.. University (KU or KUMC). Status: Funded.
Tucker, Sherrie, (Principal), Dvorak, Abbey, (Co-Principal), Haaheim, Kip, (Co-Principal), Persley, Nicole Hodges, (Co-Principal), Hayes, Michelle Heffner, (Co-Principal), Improvising Inclusive Communities with the Adaptive Use Musical Instrument, National Endowment for the Arts - Art Works Grant (Presenting and Multidisciplinary Works), $35,000, Submitted 11/17/2016 (01/01/2017 - 12/31/2017). Federal. Status: Funded.
Dvorak, Abbey, Haaheim, Kip, Heffner Hayes, Michelle, Hodges Persley, Nicole, Tucker, SherrieImprovising Inclusive Communities: From the Adaptive Use Musical Instrument to the Center for Improvisation Studies, The Commons, University of Kansas, $9,886, Submitted 04/29/2016 (01/01/2016 - 12/31/2017). University (KU or KUMC). Status: Funded.
