Alexander Nemerov (Stanford University), a scholar of American art, is Carl and Marilynn Thoma Provostial Professor in the Arts and Humanities, and chair of Stanford's Department of Art and Art History. His most recent books are Silent Dialogues: Diane Arbus and Howard Nemerov and Wartime Kiss: Visions of the Moment in the 1940s.

Nemerov's talk is part of the UC Berkeley meeting of the Musical Pasts Consortium. Aimed at giving the study of music a more prominent role in scholars' approach to the past, the Consortium, supported by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, is a collaboration among humanities centers at three American universities (UC Berkeley, University of Chicago, and Yale University), along with King's College London. Nemerov is the second of two invited speakers.