September 23, 2024
Melody maker: professor Licia Carlson’s scholarship merges music, philosophy, biomedical ethics
By Martha Young
The foundations of scholarship take many shapes and can come at unexpected moments, according to Licia Carlson, Ph.D., professor of philosophy. They also can produce surprising rewards, such as recognition from your peers.
Carlson was named the Outstanding Faculty Scholar for 2024 at Providence College. The award is presented to a tenured faculty member who demonstrates the highest standards in research, scholarship, and contributions to their field.
A nominator called Carlson “an amazing scholar” and cited her work as “highly original, not simply in the sense of forwarding original views, but in the sense of opening new philosophical areas and issues. She is a prolific author … and her work has received hundreds of citations.”
Carlson earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Toronto and joined the PC faculty in 2009. Her areas of expertise include philosophy of disability, biomedical ethics, philosophy of music, and feminist philosophy. She is the author of Shared Musical Lives: Philosophy, Disability, and the Power of Sonification, which won the 2023 ASCAP Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Book Award. She has co-edited three books, Philosophy and Its Challenge to Moral Philosophy, Phenomenology and the Arts, and Defining the Boundaries of Disability: Critical Perspectives.
Carlson explains that her interest in philosophy and intellectual disability — and her career trajectory — began “purely by chance” during her undergraduate studies at Vassar College.
“I was volunteering for a class of kids with disabilities, and I happened to have a Plato seminar right afterwards,” she explained to students and faculty at Academic Convocation in September 2024. “I had an ‘Aha!’ moment in my seminar, wondering what philosophers had to say about people with disabilities.”
Carlson’s questions were centered on what philosophers thought about individuals who lack what philosophers had defined as the most human quality — reason. Carlson, a philosopher of intellectual disability and biomedical ethics, went on to spend 30 years devoted to scholarly research challenging the traditional philosophical emphasis on rationality as the defining element of personhood.
Carlson’s volunteer experience with disabled students marked the first time she blended her passion for music into her work with children.
“There were many students in the classroom who were incredibly musical, and being a musician myself, I was eager to share this world with them,” Carlson said. “In playing and listening to music together, in both traditional and very nontraditional ways, I forged an immediate connection with them — one grounded in a shared world, a mutual love for what many would call a distinctly human experience.”
As one began playing the violin at age 4, Carlson started thinking about the healing and helpful properties of music for intellectual disability. The late musician and educator Christopher Small, who coined the term “musicking” to highlight music as a process and not an object, inspired her belief in the value of sharing music to connect people.
After publishing her book, The Faces of Intellectual Disability: Philosophical Reflections, in 2010, Carlson joined the Longwood Symphony Orchestra, a volunteer, non-profit orchestra founded in Boston whose mission is to heal community through music. Their concerts serve as fundraisers for health-related, nonprofit organizations.
Carlson credits teaching as the inspiration for her scholarly pursuits. In 2023, she began writing a short book on the French philosopher Camus and contemporary medical ethics. She also is writing the manuscript for a book on musical instruments as tools and works of art that she has tentatively titled Musical Bodies: An Ode to the Violin.
Additionally, Carlson became a first-time producer of a short film, Il Pezzo, based on a true story that brings together her love of family and the violin. The movie was filmed in the southern Italy region of Cremona and at the Museo del Violino in Cremona — a museum that houses a collection of violins and other stringed instruments, including those made by Antonio Stradivari.
In the film, Carlson recounts the true story of an unforgettable experience she had with her Italian aunt and uncle in search of a Stradivarius violin in the mountains of Calabria. The film, directed and written by her niece, is a celebration of music, Italian culture and tradition, and the deep love of family. Carlson relished the opportunity to “get up close and personal” with a Stradivarius violin, one of only 650 instruments in existence. And, while a Stradivarius was out of her reach financially, she did purchase a handmade Italian violin to mark the 50th anniversary of her playing the beloved instrument.
Il Pezzo and is being submitted to film festivals around the world and Carlson is planning a screening of the film on campus later this semester. Learn more about the film at https://www.ilpezzofilm.com/
Carlson expressed gratitude to her faculty colleagues.
“I am profoundly humbled to receive this award, and I am so grateful for all of the tremendous support from my colleagues,” she said. “To be able to teach and pursue my scholarship here at Providence College, in dialogue with so many in our community, is a tremendous gift.“
See Licia Carlson at Academic Convocation
Previous faculty scholar award recipients
- 2023 – Ian Levy, Theology
- 2022 – Victoria Templer, Psychology
- 2021 – Thomas Strasser, Art and Art History
- 2020 – Anthony Jensen, Philosophy
- 2019 – Sharon Murphy, History
- 2018 – Jack Costello, Biology
- 2017 – Russell Hillier, English
