I am pleased to announce that Politics at Newcastle University will be launching a new MA degree in World Politics and Popular Culture for the 2010-11 academic year. Here is the course description:
World Politics and Popular Culture is a distinctive
interdisciplinary degree programme that examines the changing
dynamics of contemporary international relations in the context
of the politics of the various forces shaping and shaped by
popular culture. The programme focuses on key theories, policies,
and events in world politics in relation to both traditional and
new media. You will learn not only how to think critically about
how world politics is reflected or reproduced in popular culture,
but also how the politics of popular culture shape the dynamics of
world politics...
Admission requirements are an undergraduate degree from an accredited university with at least a 2.i result--the rough equivalent in North American systems would be a B average.
Please note that 'other qualifications
or relevant professional experience may also satisfy the entrance
requirements. Applicants whose first language is not English
require IELTS 6.5, TOEFL 575 (paper-based) or 233 (computer-based),
or equivalent.'
Information on how to apply can be found here. There is no formal deadline--apart from the start of classes at the end of September--but if you are applying from overseas, securing a student visa can take several weeks depending on your circumstances.
If you'd like to talk to someone to find out more about the World Politics and Popular Culture MA, you can contact Matt Davies, whose tremendous efforts and vision saw this through from design to implementation.
I'm also happy to field any inquiries that you may have about the programme or pursuing a MA in politics in the UK.
Disclaimer: If there are any differences between information provided here and
that contained on official Newcastle University web-pages, the latter
should be viewed as the authoritative source.
Collage and photo credit: DerrickT (work displayed under a Creative Commons attribution license)
Gary Bredow has put together a really tight film on the rise of techno in Detroit.
High Tech Soul describes itself as 'the first documentary to tackle the deep roots of techno music
alongside the cultural history of Detroit, its birthplace. From the
race riots of 1967 to the underground party scene of the late 1980s,
Detroit’s economic downturn didn’t stop the invention of a new kind of
music that brought international attention to its producers and their
hometown.'
Plus the interviews with techno pioneers like Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Windsor's Ritchie Hawtin provide a personal layer to the story that often gets overlooked in any macro analysis.
So, even if you don't like techno music--or don't have any idea what techno is--the film will still be interesting--particularly the first half--because it provides insight into how cityscapes, soundscapes, means of production, and politics came together to facilitate a musical genre whose global popularity foreshadowed today's viral commons.
If you are interested in finding out more about the global development of techno, Simon Reynold's Generation Ecstasyis also excellent.
As part of its 60th Anniversary celebration, the UK's Political Studies Association is polling its membership to compile a list of the top 'political' songs of all time.
They state that:
the top ten
songs voted by members and an additional ten chosen by a judging panel will be
published by the New Statesman to
coincide with the Association’s 60th Annual Conference, which is
being held in Edinburgh from 29th March to
1st April.
And here's the list of songs that they've chosen as being exemplary 'political':
Annie
Lennox & Aretha Franklin: Sisters are doing it for themselves
Anon.: Bella Ciao
Barry
McGuire: Eve of Destruction
Billie Holiday: Strange
Fruit
Billy
Bragg: Which side are you on?
Bob
Dylan: The Times They Are a changing
Bob
Marley: Redemption Song
Bruce
Springsteen: Born in the USA
Carl
Bean: I was born this way
Cecil
A. Spring-Rice: I vow to thee my country
Charles A. Tindley: We
Shall Overcome
Charly García: Nos
siguen pegando abajo
Claude Joseph Rouget de
Lisle: Le Marseillaise
Donovan: Universal
Soldier
Edwin
Starr: War
Elvis
Costello: Tramp The Dirt Down
Enoch
Sontonga: Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika
Eugène Pottier: The
Internationale
Fela
Kuti: Zombie
Gil
Scott Heron: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Horst
Wessel: Die Fahne hoch
Jim
Connell: The Red Flag
John
Lennon: Imagine
Joni
Mitchell: Big Yellow Taxi
Leornard Cohen: The
Partisan
Li
Youyuan: The East is Red
Marvin Gaye: What's
Going On?
Midnight Oil: Beds are
Burning
Nena:
99 Luftaballons
Nina
Simone: Mississippi Goddam
Pete
Seeger: Where have all the flowers gone?
Peter
Gabriel: Biko
Plastic Ono Band: Give
Peace a Chance
Public Enemy: Fight the
Power
Randy
Newman: Political Science
RATM:
Killing in the name
Robert Wyatt:
Shipbuilding
Rolling Stones: Gimme
Shelter
Sex
Pistols: God Save The Queen
The
Beatles: Revolution
The
Clash: Know Your Rights
The
Cranberries: Zombie
The
Jam: Eton Rifles
The
Police: Invisible Sun
The
Specials AKA: Free Nelson Mandela
The
Strawbs: Part of the Union
Tracy
Chapman: Talkin' 'bout a revolution
U2:
Sunday Bloody Sunday
UB40:
1 in 10
Verdi: Chorus of Hebrew
Slaves
Victor Jara: Te Recuerdo
Amanda
William Blake: Jerusalem
Woody
Guthrie: This Land is Your Land
Now to give credit where it is due, the list is not as lame as one might have feared, even if it is heavily skewed in favour of nostalgic boomer anthems and assumes that music stopped being political sometime in the mid 1990s.
But, it is an obvious collection, in part because it is underpinned by a very narrow assumption about what politics 'is' and therefore what can properly count as 'political'. These choices reveal that politics--at least for those who drafted this list--is defined by explicit representations of nationalism, street protest, conflict, inequality, support for--or opposition to--government policy, and perhaps alienation that have become associated with historical time periods or events. These are presented as songs that have responded to a politics that exists out there regardless of what we may think about it.
It is the politics of recognized issues, institutions, and actors, that have been invested by the dominant socio-economic forces of the time with the importance and privileged status of being coded as 'political' in political discourses. Moreover, it is a politics of direct intentions, intentions that the audience can supposedly discern from the lyrical content or title of the pieces.
To be clear, I am not arguing that these songs do not cover what we can consider to be political subjects. And it is not to say that these songs do not address important political issues. But there is more to music being political and to the politicization of music than a neat fit with events that are recorded in orthodox history books as being 'of' the political sphere.
For example, take the Rolling Stones' 'Brown Sugar'. Some might dismiss it as a cheeky song about lust--or maybe lines of prose from Strom Thurmond's secret diary--that is devoid of any broad political significance. Yet, the narrative exposes the societal power-relations enabled by the privileging of the white heterosexual male gaze. More specifically, the song can be seen as an example of how that gaze eroticizes difference into an object of fetishistic corporeal desire while simultaneously denying the humanity of the eroticized other. This strikes me as incredibly political and as important to understanding gender and racial dynamics today as when it is was first performed.
Similarly, this list does not take into account that aesthetics are in part about the shaping of what we can and/or are prepared to perceive as well as the value to be accorded to ways of representing our perceptions. And since perception itself shapes political possibility by forwarding a particular understanding of reality, then music that challenges aesthetic norms is also highly political. So pieces like John Cage's 4'33 or genres like Noise Music are themselves constitutive of the limits of the political, transgressing boundaries that are supposed to separate art, profanity, the abject, or even the sublime. While I am unsure how these might relate to a specific praxis, that does not mean that they lack a political sensibility.
Furthermore, the limited conception of the political underpinning the PSA list completely misses the constitutive role of music in the creation and maintenance of particular relations of power. For example, the Barney the Dinosaur Theme Song or the Meow Mix Commercial Jingle were favoured by American interrogators as a means to torture detainees in Iraq. In my mind they have just as an important political significance as Pete Seeger lamenting the metaphorical absence of flowers.
So in the end, even with my reservations above, I'm not entirely sure how to read the PSA's attempt to form links between the field of politics and popular culture. On the one hand, given how small-c conservative the disciplines of politics and international relations are in general, might this represent an opening--however small--to begin to get colleagues to take the popular culture-world politics continuum seriously? Or is this best seen as a shallow and gimmicky appropriation that just reinforces problematic understandings of politics and of popular culture?
Update: you can find the top 20--as voted for by some members of the PSA--here.
Early this morning, I turned on BBC news to discover that Michael Jackson had died in Los Angeles from an apparent heart attack. When I was first starting school in the early 1980s, he was the epitome of cool. Everyone where I grew up in Toronto thought he was awesome.
But as we know, the adoration didn't last. Before long it was the excesses, mysteries, and general WTFness of his life that had become amongst the first slabs of meat for the celebrity obsessed grinder of the 24 hour info-tainment news cycle.
Yet amid the tributes, controversy, and morbid voyeurism surrounding the life and sudden death of the 'King of Pop', what is not being discussed is the important role Michael Jackson played in ending a significant aspect of segregation on American television.
MTV, the first 24 hour a day music video television station which began broadcasting in August 1981 played virtually no music by African-American artists. While MTV did not have an explicitly worded policy to exclude black artists, MTV executives would reject videos--like the popular 'Super Freak' by Rick James--on the basis that they did not fit the station's image. James went very public with his displeasure, as did David Bowie in support, raising a broader awareness of the practice.
This controversy placed pressure on MTV to become more inclusive and they took a punt on Michael Jackson's video for 'Billie Jean'. As reported in an interview by Jet Magazine with the founder of MTV, Les Garland: "I called Bob (Pittman, MTV co-founder) to tell him, 'I just saw the greatest video I've ever seen in my life. It is off the dial it's so good.' And it was.
Not only did the airing of Michael Jackson's videos significantly increase ratings, but they began to expand the musical tastes of MTV's largely white and suburban viewership. This paved the way for the explosion in the popularity of R&B and hip hop artists amongst white North American youth in the 1990s and 2000s. No longer were African Americans excluded from getting exposure and recognition for the musical forms that they were pioneering in favour of white artists who imitiated these forms. So Jay-Z, P-Diddy, Beyonce, Master P, Dr. Dre, R. Kelly, and all those who enjoy their music owe Michael Jackson a heck of a lot for opening a door that catalyzed a significant socio-cultural shift at the end of the 20th century.
