AoM-LS/MC 2022

We are happy to announce our 3rd “Anthropology of Music Lecture Series and Master Class” in 2022 with Louise Meintjes. This year’s event is entitled 'Attending to the Moment: Aesthetics, Politics, Sound'. In a series of three lectures and in conversation with master class participants and their research projects, Louise Meintjes will discuss the relationship between aesthetics, politics and sound. In the framework of what she calls an ethical analysis of sound she will explore the question of how to understand the complex entanglements of political and aesthetic arenas by attending to the moment and making it resonate in ethnographic description. >>READ MORE

And see our Flyer for more information on the programme.

December 20, 2021

Attending to the Moment, 3rd AoM-LS/MC in 2022

After a COVID-induced break, we are now pleased to welcome Louise Meintjes as speaker and key discussant for our 3rd Anthropology of Music Lecture Series and Master Class, 13-16 July, 2022, at the Department of Anthropology and African Studies, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz (Germany).
June 20, 2022

Lecture 2: Multimodality in Music Ethnography

A collaborative experiment at lifting my ethnography, Dust of the Zulu, off the page into a multimedia installation raised questions about the risks, challenges, promise and pleasures of multimodal ethnographic work about song and dance. I address the process and outcome of remixing the aesthetic, sensory and political registers of the book as a form of reciprocity and participation in a public anthropology of the arts.
June 20, 2022

Lecture 3: The Bellow of the Sacrificial Ox: Sound in precarious times

I explore the aesthetic value of cattle in Zulu song and dance, including in courting and wedding rituals. Worsening drought, floods, overgrazing, unemployment and inflation (exacerbated by the pandemic’s wrath), and a legacy of violence point to a time of dire economic contraction in Msinga, KwaZulu-Natal. Yet largesse that includes cattle prevails. I listen in to celebratory events to consider this seeming contradiction.