Michael Kinney (he/him) is a New Map of Life Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford’s Center for Longevity, working on a book project that centers issues of continuation, longevity, success and failure, intergenerationalism, and relationships between disability aesthetics and aging embodiments in genres of vocal music. Michael’s aim is to describe the ambivalences — and new possibilities — of using one’s voice over the human life course.

His research engages the politics and ethics of listening by asking how sociocultural narratives about the human life course shape sound and musical practices, communities, institutions, histories, and aesthetics. Michael’s work has been features in prestigious conferences including the American Musicological Society, the Society for Ethnomusicology, and the Modern Language Association. He is also the author of multiple book chapters, including on the coalescence of feminist embodiment, aging, and longevity in the Las Vegas residencies of Céline Dion and Cher, and on aging voices and bodies in the musicals of Stephen Sondheim. As the co-convener of the “Musicking in Old Age” study group, Michael is devoted to bring together scholars to develop strategies and methodologies for studying old age and the life course in music and sound studies.