From Bay to Brostep: Neoliberalism from post-cinematic affect to EDM
Steven Shaviro’s Post-Cinematic Affect addresses the way the shift between classically liberal and neoliberal systems of social/artistic organization plays out in film and 4D visual media (And, I’m working with the version printed in Film-Philosophy, because that’s what I taught…
Two Meditations on Beyonce, Race, & Queerness
These are two polished-up versions of analyses that have already appeared here. I needed a 1k word writing sample, and nothing from my recently-in-print work could be cut to stand on its own. I’m using this material in manuscripts I’m…
Neoliberalism and Contemporary Pop Music: An Overview
I’ve been thinking and writing a lot about the logic of biopolitical neoliberalism as it manifests in contemporary pop music (and a little bit in 20th c avant-garde art music). In the same way that classical liberalism and tonal harmony…
Music as the Other of Philosophy and Proxy for Philosophy’s Others: Some Initial Thoughts On Grosz
I’m fairly new to Elizabeth Grosz’s work, and these are just some initial thoughts as I prepare for Monday’s grad class. Feedback is, as always, welcome. All references are to Chaos, Territory, Art. While Grosz claims she is not orientalizingly…
Hangover the Limit: More on neoliberalism as a system of musical organization
I’ve been writing a lot about how the logic of biopolitical neoliberalism manifests in musical practices. For example, here is post about the contrast between classically liberal tonal harmony and contemporary EDM-influenced pop structures. I want to pick up where…
Contract Theory, Intersectionality, Neoliberalism, and Absolute Music
I’m working on a manuscript that, among other things, ties classical liberalism to a specific “aesthetic”—what I call “liberal realism”—and neoliberalism to another sort of aesthetic—what I might call “neoliberal formalism” (I’m not entirely decided on this latter term). While…
Jasbir Puar, Non-Metric Time, Steve Reich, and Kelis
This is an excerpt from the introduction to the manuscript I’m working on. Here, I’m discussing Jasbir Puar’s reworking of Foucaultian biopower into her notion of “superpanopticism.” She argues that superpanopticism operates not just in space (i.e., in 3D) but…
The Role of Music in Rousseau’s Non-Ideal Domination Contract–Or, why you should read my book
I’ve been reading Carole Pateman’s and Charles Mills’s Contract & Domination, prepping it to teach later this term in my graduate Feminist Theory class. Here, I want to talk about Mills’s discussion of the early, Discourses-era Rousseau, because I think…
Sovereign Harmony and Biopolitical Frequency: Or, what Attali and LMFAO can teach us about neoliberalism
“Every major social rupture has been preceded by an essential mutation in the codes of music, in its mode of audition, and in its economy” (Attali, Noise 10).[1] So I’ve been thinking more about this idea of “transmission,” and I’ve…
My first TV interview!(??!!)
So, the local cable news channel interviewed me today about the idea that listening to violent music can cause someone to murder cops: http://charlotte.news14.com/content/top_stories/630138/trial-brings-up-debate-over-music-s-influence-on-behavior The short version is: The idea that “the gangsta rap made me do it” rests on…
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