Friday – Saturday, April 25 – 26, 2025 – 9am – 5:30pm both days, The Franke Institute for the Humanities
Join Anna Schultz (UChicago), Sumanth Gopinath (U of Minnesota), and Fiona Boyd (UChicago) for Country Music as Theory—a two-day conference from April 25-26 that will bring together scholars exploring country music and adjacent sounds as critical tools for rethinking belonging, history, and identity.
The keynote, titled “Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter, Mobility and the Unfinished Dream of Black Imaginative Freedom,” will be given by Dr. Francesca T. Royster on Friday from 11-12:30pm. Additionally, on Saturday at 8pm, Mary Cutrufello and Sumanth’s band, The Gated Community, will be performing full-band sets! Register for the concert here
All events will be held at the Franke Institute for the Humanities (1100 E 57th St) except for the Saturday night concert, which will take place at Café Logan E 60th St, Chicago, IL 60637. Learn more and register here
Hosted by Franke Institute and co-sponsored by COSAS