Past Event

Dr. Jesse Stewart

Department of English

*”DJ Spooky and the Politics of Afro-postmodernism”

3 December, 2009

Wednesday, 4:00pm -5:30 pm

ICSLAC Seminar Rm. 201 D, St. Patrick’s Bldg

Building on the emergent concept of Afro-modernism (which has been fruitfully applied in recent music scholarship by Guthrie Ramsey Jr. and others to African Diasporic engagements with modernism and/or modernity), this paper theorizes the concept of Afro-postmodernism. Afro-postmodernism denotes the kind of fragmentation, plurality, and intertextuality normally associated with postmodernism, but locates these strategies of signification within the cultural matrix of the African diaspora wherein they often function in unique ways. Using the work of work of musician, conceptual artist, filmmaker, theorist, and writer, Paul D. Miller–better known as DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid–as a test case, the essay examines some of the ways in which his work articulates a trenchant form of Afro-postmodernism that is both poetic and political in nature.

Jesse Stewart is an award-winning composer, percussionist, improviser, visual artist, instrument builder, researcher, writer, and educator. As an improvising percussionist, he has performed with musical luminaries including George Lewis, Roswell Rudd, Bill Dixon, William Parker, Evan Parker, Joe Mcphee, Pauline Oliveros, Michael Snow, and many others. He also performs regularly as a soloist and leads the Jesse Stewart Ensemble, a chamber group dedicated to performing music that he has written for instruments he has designed and built out of a variety of materials including stone, glass, and metal. His current research interests include just intonation, tuning theory, the limits of musical notation, intersections between jazz and hip hop cultures, Afro-modernism and Afro-postmodernism, hip hop cinema, turntablism, the pedagogy of improvised music, and musical improvisation as a form of transcultural practice. He is a co-investigator with the Improvisation, Community, and Social Practice Project which was awarded a 7-year $2.5 million SSHRC Major Collaborative Research Initiative grant in 2007. His writings on music, art, and culture have been published in Musicworks magazine, Black Music Research Journal, Interdisciplinary Humanities, The Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, as well as numerous art catalogues. He is an Assistant Professor of music in the School for Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University where he is crosslisted with the Institute for Studies in Literature, Art, and Culture doctoral program.

*Please note that papers are pre-circulated, and discussed in the workshop. To obtain a copy contact Franny Nudelman at franny_nudelman@carleton.ca