Perspectives in conjunction with Adriana Corral: AS LONG AS LIFE ENDURES
Exploring Amazing Grace with Damjan Rakonjac and Madelyn Shackelford Washington
Date:
Wednesday, October 7, 2026 | 12pm-1:30pm
Conversation followed by lunch.
Format:
Join Damjan Rakonjac (Assistant Professor of Musicology, Moores School of Music) and Madelyn Washington (Head of User Services, UH Libraries) for a deep dive into the central connections to music and the hymn Amazing Grace, in the exhibition Adriana Corral: As Long As Life Endures, which takes its title from a line in the hymn.
Perspectives are gallery conversations led by scholars,experts, and artists in a wide range of fields. Speakers respond to the artwork on view, bringing their own expertise to the exhibition topic. Held at noon, museumgoers are encouraged to stay and continue the discussion over lunch (provided).
About Madelyn Shackelford Washington:
Madelyn’s experience as a musician and librarian informs a strong conviction that artists–of all kinds–should play a significant role in creating a literate public. Committed to ensuring that students at the University of Houston employ their education in a global society, Madelyn provides leadership and vision for transformative library services, programming, workflows, and policies that support student success and research in the MD Anderson Library and the music library. Convicted by the belief that the political is social and cultural, Madelyn makes this principle count by encouraging her patrons to embrace multiple viewpoints. It is her hope that they may effectively engage each other, in high-quality, equitable, and effective participation in digital-age civics, activism, and politics.
About Damjan Rakonjac:
Damjan Rakonjac is an Assistant Professor of Musicology at the University of Houston, Moores School of Music. His work explores music’s relational impact across cultures, histories, geographies, genres, and languages through global urban settings. Research areas include music and the arts in Third Republic France, music and exoticism, musical life in Vietnam during the French colonial period, music in film/tv/media, and global pop.
Damjan earned two PhDs from UCLA (The University of California, Los Angeles): in Musicology and in French and Francophone Studies. He has conducted funded research at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Vietnam National Archives Center I, and the National Library of Vietnam, as well as presented at academic conferences in the US, Europe, and Vietnam. Damjan co-organized an international symposium about Vietnamese film music, Hear Việt Film, at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music (2022) and the interdisciplinary conference Resounding Spaces: Global Approaches to Music and Sound in Urban Contexts, at the Moores School of Music, UH (2026). Damjan has been the regular recipient of grants, including multiple Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships from the United States Department of Education, an Innovation Grant from the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts, the Global Faculty Development Fund from UH’s Institute for Global Engagement and Office of the Provost, and the New Faculty Research Program from the UH Division of Research.