Listening to Black Women's Lives: The Archive of Philippa Schuyler's World Travels in her Music

• In Event: Writing in/is Progress: Black Women's Biographical Studies from Start to Finish

Description for Program

My black feminist biography, Good Women Die: Re-Envisioning the Life of Philippa Duke Schuyler (1931-1967), counters the “tragic mulatto” trope emergent in previous accounts of her life. I build on Kathryn Talalay first biography of Schuyler, Composition in Black and White (1995), yet ask very different questions of the archive. I explore how Schuyler’s sound archive offers another layer to my biographical project. My focus has been on the photographic and race yet her piano compositions reflect her transnationalism as well: one can hear African, Middle Eastern, and East Asian influences woven together, drawing on her extensive world travels.

Author

• Rachel Afi Quinn, University of Houston