Keynotes

Richard Goldstein (Hunter College, NY, USA) is music journalist and cultural critic. He wrote for the Village Voice from June 1966 until 2004, eventually becoming executive editor. He specializes in gay and lesbian issues, music, and counterculture topics. He has issued two collections of his work, Reporting the Counterculture (1989) and Goldstein's Greatest Hits (1970). He also released a collection of rock lyrics interspersed with psychedelic illustrations, The Poetry of Rock (1969). This book has been taught in literature classes in a number of secondary schools and universities. Beginning in the early 1970s, Goldstein has been a champion of gay rights and issued early calls for attention to the AIDS epidemic. Since then, he has tackled the cutting-edge topic of gay power politics with his book Homocons: The Rise of the Gay Right (2003). He famously issued a call in The Nation for Eminem to duel with him, taking exception to the controversial rapper's homophobic lyrics. Goldstein is a GLAAD-award winner for his contributions to the gay community. In Winter 2014, Goldstein will publish a memoir of his years as a rock critic and political radical which will be called Another Little Piece of My Heart: My Life of Rock and Revolution in the '60s (2014).

Devon Powers, Ph.D. (Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA) researches the intersections between music, history, and the circulation of culture in an attempt to understand how, why, and under what circumstances and constraints music becomes popular. Of particular interest to her is cultural intermediation – the people and processes that operate "in between" the production and consumption of culture. To this end, recent endeavors have explored the history of music journalism, music and promotional culture, popular music historiography, and music in new media environments. An avid music consumer and fan, Powers has also worked as a freelance music journalist as well as in nonprofit public relations. She served on the 2010 program committee for the International Association of Popular Music (IASPM) - U.S., and in 2009 was named an Emerging Scholars Fellow at Franklin & Marshall College. She holds a BA (1999) in Women's Studies and English from Oberlin College and a doctorate (2008) in Media Studies from New York University (Writing the Record, 2012). Powers joined the Department of Culture and Communication at Drexel University in 2008, and commonly teaches classes on consumer culture, popular music, and media criticism.