Event #3- Academic Lecture

Tuesday, I went to a lecture titled "Twang: A Southern Note" by Robert Cantwell. In this lecture, Cantwell explored the many ways in which twang shapes southern culture and how it develops relationships and unity among race and social class. Throughout his speech, he had the audience listen to clips of Bluegrass music with a variety of typical bluegrass instruments such as the banjo, fiddle and steel guitar. He focused alot on the banjo and how it encompassed southern twang. However, he also commented on some singers ability to express this twang while singing. Therefore, twang not only refers to the twang of an instrument but also to a twang in a singer's voice. To catch the audience's attention, he first played the introduction to Beethoven's 5th Symphony. This is a common musical piece that the audience (composed of mostly of intellectuals) were quite familiar. Upon playing this piece, it became obvious that this was not the twang of southern music. Cantwell used this realization as an introduction into his lecture by commenting on the stark contrast between this classical piece and southern music. Southern music is in a class of its own.

Cantwell connected with his audience by playing clips of music that allowed the audience to pinpoint the twang to which he was referring to. I enjoyed these clips and I enjoyed the lecture at first; however, as time moved on, his ideas became so complex and complicated that it became impossible to follow. As a speaker, he was very quiet and he read almost verbatim from his paper so that he became somewhat monotone. However, he was very informed about his topic and went into alot of detail to support his hypothesis. The questions that were asked were also very complex. Though, I could not understand the majority of the lecture, it definitely gave me an idea of the work and research that goes into putting together what is considered to be a worthy thesis to give a lecture on. The purpose is to inform your peers; in this case, Cantwell was speaking to an audience composed of fellow intellectuals. Through these lectures, students can get an inside look of the true academic world and learn to appreciate all of the work that goes on in a University such as Carolina.