In the fall term of 1994, the University of California Humanities Research Institute in Irvine will host a resident group, "Re-Theorizing Music." The group seeks to remedy the fact that "the postmodern thought and theory embraced by other disciplines" has scarcely affected the field of music, "one of the last fields to be affected" by such developments. Among the questions to be addressed: "What effect would it have on analysis if we theorized music along the lines of Lacan? What does 'queer theory' have to offer to the study of music?" Has an analysis of the construction of gender roles fully informed our reading of 19th century music? To what extent is 'music theory' itself a projection of an elaborate controlling mechanism in our profession and art? ... We hope to push the discipline in more socially aware and intellectually challenging directions... into a multiplicity of ways of theorizing music that will not exclude or privilege any particular repertory or period, any national interest or genre."

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