Musicology Colloquium: "The Democracy That Society Allows: Sounds of Protests in Japan and the U.S."

Event Information
Event Date: 
February 21, 2020 - 5:00pm
Venue: 
Room 0359 (fishbowl), Music Building
Address: 
1114 W. Nevada St. Urbana, IL
Description: 

Musicology Colloquium:
Noriko Manabe, Temple University

The Democracy That Society Allows: Sounds of Protests in Japan and the U.S.

Perceived attacks on the foundations of democracy in recent years have sparked large demonstrations, often numbering in the hundreds of thousands, in both Japan and the U.S. This talk will explore the ways in which democracy is sounded differently in street protests of two densely populated cities—Tokyo and New York—as shaped by urban geography, outdoor acoustics, participatory practices, and perhaps most importantly, policing. Analyzing protests as an interplay between urban space, police, and actors, the talk considers the ways in which the sounds of street protests reflect the kind of democracy that society allows.

Noriko Manabe is Associate Professor of Music Studies at Temple University, with research interests in music in relation to social movements, war trauma, intertextual meaning, and linguistics. Her monograph, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Protest Music after Fukushima, considers the constraints faced by musicians in expressing political views and how music is shaped in protests in four different spaces—cyberspace, street demonstrations, festivals, and recordings. She is currently writing her second monograph, Revolution Remixed: Intertextuality in Protest Music, and co-editing the volumes, The Oxford Handbook of Protest Music (with Eric Drott) and Nuclear Music (with Jessica Schwartz), all under contract with Oxford. Recent publications include an article analyzing Kendrick Lamar on Music Theory Online, which won the Outstanding Publication Award from the Popular Music section of the Society for Music Theory, and on chants of the Trump Resistance in Music and Politics.

Sponsored by The School of Music / Musicology

Admission: 
free and open to the public
More Information