Millikin University Assistant Professor of Music; Dr.
Travis Stimeling; has certainly made an impact in terms of his contributions to
the Millikin University School of Music.
A Millikin University faculty member since 2007, Dr. Stimeling has tapped
into a new project that will assist students in engaging musicological
literature.
This particular project is known as Critical Voices: “The
University of Guelph Book Review Project”, an online journal published by
students with content consisting of book reviews of recently published
musicological literature on music of the twentieth and twenty-first
centuries. The journal is
currently published each semester.
“The project was started by a colleague of mine, Dr.
Kimberly Francis at the University of Guelph, who invited the Millikin
University School of Music to participate in the Critical Voices project. The
project began last spring, and it gives students the opportunity to learn about
peer review and to engage in scholarship.
Our primary objective is to have students engage with a book, summarize
and critique its main points, and express what they have learned in writing.”
Dr. Stimeling says.
Recently, the second volume of Critical Voices: “The
University of Guelph Book Review Project” was published featuring Dr. Stimeling
as a guest editor in which he provided insights into the emerging field of ecomusicology. Five Millikin University students also
provided their musicological expertise on various selections of literature
which now can be viewed at http://criticalvoices.lib.uoguelph.ca/index.
“We want our students to learn
the value of peer review and feedback, and we would like to have a group of
students build an editorial capacity for reviewing and editing.” Dr. Stimeling
says.
Prior to his efforts on Critical
Voices, Dr. Stimeling wrote his first book titled “Cosmic
Cowboys and New Hicks: The Counter-Cultural Sounds of Austin’s Progressive
Country Music Scene” (Oxford University Press, 2011), a book that studies the “progressive
country” music scene that thrived in Austin, Texas from 1972-1978. Dr. Stimeling is currently working on
his second book tentatively titled “The Country Music Reader,” which will cover
the study of country music from 1922 to the present. But as for Critical Voices, Dr. Stimeling hopes the project
will continue to expand in the coming years.