April 4, 2011, Greencastle, Ind. — Philip Auslander, professor in the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture at the Georgia Institute of Technology, will come to DePauw University on Thursday, April 7, to provide the keynote address at the 37th Annual
Undergraduate Honors Conference. In the 8 p.m. speech in the ballroom of the Memorial Student Union, Dr. Auslander will discuss his new work, discussing his new piece, "Sound and Vision: The Audio-Visual Economy of Musical Performance." The presentation is free and open to the public.
The professor's study illustrates the ways of thinking about the relationship between the visual and auditory aspects of musical performance. Auslander's primary research interest is in performance, focusing more specifically on performance in music, media and technology. He has written on aesthetic and cultural performances as diverse as theatre, performance art, music, stand-up comedy, robotic performance, and courtroom procedures and is the author of five books, including Performing Glam Rock: Gender and Theatricality in Popular Music (2006) and the second edition of Liveness: Performance in a 
Mediatized Culture (2008).
"Philip Auslander goes head to head with the heavyweight critics in the discipline," says Steve Timm, professor of communication and theatre and chair of the department. "In this age of technology, he calls into question the primacy of 'liveness' in performance."
The case study focuses on the psychedelic light show in both rock and classical music, as well as touching on other types of music. Using video and sound clips, images, and other sources to exemplify his findings, Auslander makes this a very accessible talk to all audiences.
For 37 years, the DePauw National Undergraduate Honors Conference for Communication Arts and Sciences has gathered top undergraduate students and exemplary scholars in communication studies together for an intensive weekend of scholarly dialogue. For more information, click here.