Robin James's Luther College Colloquium Price Lecture September 12 2013 -- On resilience, gender/race, neoliberalism, Lady Gaga, and Rihanna

"Melancholic Hang-Ups"

Pop stars Lily Allen, Beyonce, Meghan Trainor, & Taylor Swift have all released work that depicts them overcoming feminized damage such as negative body image or objectification. Is this overcoming--which I call “resilience”--evidence that patriarchy is over and the problem of sexism is solved, or is it the very means by which patriarchy prescribes our gender performances and by which white supremacy cuts the color line?

Post Feminist Pop Music 10/8/14 App State U Women's Studies Distinguished Speaker Series

Keynote Lecture for "Embracing The Margins: Counter-Mainstream Sentiment In Popular Music" at UNC Chapel Hill 28 March 2015.

I talk about Meghan Trainor, Taylor Swift, Gaga & Beyonce, John Cage, & bottoms.

Post feminist Pop: Resilience and Queer Melancholy

The Sonic Episteme is a book I (philosophy prof Robin James) wrote. Since I can't travel to promote it, I've decided to make a podcast series that introduces audiences to the book and gives them a snapshot of both the book's contents and my thoughts about it.

This episode focuses on the book's introduction. I open by talking about how I got the idea for the book and framing the book's overall argument. In the second half I read a short excerpt from the book's introduction.

The Sonic Episteme Podcast Episode 1

This episode discusses chapter 1 of The Sonic Episteme, which is about Jacques Attali's 1977 book _Noise: The Political Economy of Music._

If you listen carefully you'll hear some guest vocals as my dog Juno barks in the background ;)

You can buy The Sonic Episteme at the Duke University Press website: https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-sonic-episteme

The Sonic Episteme Podcast Episode 2 - -Chapter 1

This episode discusses chapter 2 of The Sonic Episteme, which studies political ontologies that model political existence on voice. I explain the chapter's overall argument and read 2 passages from the book: one about Ranciere's claim that neoliberalism is the perfect realization of Plato's concept of sophrosyne, and one about Devonya Havis's concept of "sounding" as a black feminist alternative to voice-based political ontologies.

The Sonic Episteme Podcast Ep 3: Chapter 2 Universal Envoicement

This episode is about chapter 3 of The Sonic Episteme by Robin James. This chapter is about new materialist theory (Grosz, Bennett, Barad specifically) on the one hand, and vibratory ontologies in black studies, on the other (specifically Ashon Crawley and Christina Sharpe).

The Sonic Episteme Podcast Episode 4: Chapter 3 Acoustic Resonance as Materialist Ontology

This is a podcast lecture from my Fall 2020 Theories of Neoliberalism graduate seminar.

Neoliberalism is nominally all about "freedom" or, you know, liberty. Its entire justification for transforming everything into a private market is that this is purportedly the best way to maximize individual freedom. This week we study one way neoliberal concepts of freedom refract through black vernacular arts. We begin with Dale Chapman's study of "the jazz metaphor," i.e., the phenomenon whereby management scholars and "entrepreneurship" gurus use the improvising jazz musician as a metaphor for the ideal entrepreneur. Both are supposedly adept at making free choices within some basic parameters. Then, we'll read Lester Spence's analysis of the ways hip hop has adapted neoliberal discourses of entrepreneurship into the ideal of "the hustle." Finally, we'll look at Emily Lordi's argument that Beyonce's post-2013 work critiques and crafts alternatives to that "hustle" narrative and creates idea/ls that sound a lot like...improvisation?

Robin James 2

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