Maria Johnson | SIU

Johnson's articles on women's blues and interdisciplinary scholarship on African American women's literature as performance appear in African American Review, Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies, Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture, Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Black Orpheus: Music in African American Fiction From the Harlem Renaissance to Toni Morrison (Garland, 2000), and More than the Blues: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Black Women and Music (University of Illinois Press, 2005), She has also contributed essays to Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary (Harvard, 2004), The Encyclopedia of the Blues (Routledge, 2005), and the Encyclopedia of African American Folklore (Greenwood, 2005). She presents regularly at the annual meetings of The Society for Ethnomusicology, The U.S. Branch of The International Association for the Study of Popular Music, The Delta Blues Symposium, and at the bi-annual Feminist Theory & Music conferences. Other notable presentation venues include The International Conference on the Blues Tradition: Memory, Criticism & Pedagogy (State College, PA), Conference on America's Blues Culture and Heritage (Jacksonville, FL), The Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts & Humanities (Orlando, FL), The Scripps College Inaguural Symposium on Women and Music (Claremont, CA), The 1998 International Conference on Bob Dylan (Palo Alto, CA), Music, Sexuality, and Performance Symposium (Berkeley, CA), and Language and Culture: East and West (Manoa, Hawaii).

A blues performer, Johnson is a member of the all-female quintet, Loose Gravel (piano/keyboards, guitar, vocals). In addition to performing regularly at campus functions and community events including "Celebrating Women in the Arts," "Women of Distinction," "Arts in Celebration," "Brown Bag Concerts," "Take Back the Night" and Women's Center Benefits, Loose Gravel was featured at The Delta Blues Symposium VI: Women in the Delta (Jonesboro, AR), The Southern Illinois Women's Health Conference, and at The 25th Annual John A. Logan College High School Writing Competition. The band released a self-produced self-titled compact disc of original recordings in 2003.

Johnson's professional service to the Society for Ethnomusicology includes co-chairing the Section on the Status of Women (2002-2004) and co-chairing The Gender & Sexualities Taskforce (1999-2003).