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Benjamin Tausig

@burrata.bsky.social

4.6K followers 1.6K following 4.5K posts

Associate professor of music and sound in Asia/anthropology. Crossword puzzle editor; TNG watcher.

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Benjamin Tausig @burrata.bsky.social · Jan 7

My new book, "Bangkok After Dark: Maurice Rocco, Transnational Nightlife, and the Making of Cold War Intimacies" is now available for pre-order!! It comes out in May.

You'll love reading it, I believe!

Use code E25TAUSG and it'll be about $21 + shipping.

www.dukeupress.edu/bangkok-afte...

www.dukeupress.edu

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Benjamin Tausig @burrata.bsky.social · 5h

It’s a tragedy of institutions.

Benjamin Tausig @burrata.bsky.social · 5h

With no community comment til after the fact.

Benjamin Tausig @burrata.bsky.social · 5h

Did you know that there are societies where they preserve older things that people still like and use?

The imperative to “move fast and break things,” whether it’s adherents know it or not, is ultimately the motto of total war. Destruction and capital work hand in glove.

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Benjamin Tausig @burrata.bsky.social · 6h

The logic that convinces managers to destroy treasured institutional things because they look a little dusty, or because they personally might be able to slap their name on whatever bullshit replaces those things, is a profound American illness.

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Benjamin Tausig @burrata.bsky.social · 6h

You get the sense that it’s not so much the media format they think is outdated, but the very notions of art and culture (not to mention community)

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Reposted by Benjamin Tausig

Daniel Wyche @danielwyche.bsky.social · 13h

This entire exchange is so infuriating on so many levels. The sort of dead eyed blankness of the president, especially when she’s lying about the one guy being fired and he actually calls it and she just sits there. Where did they get these people?

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Benjamin Tausig @burrata.bsky.social · 17h

The change happened overnight, without warning. Cops escorted the students out.

People really like and value these kinds of things! They’re great for the community and enormous for the student staff. The admin rationale is the absolute grimmest mba speak.

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Benjamin Tausig @burrata.bsky.social · 17h

This story is kind of so sad I can barely read about it (like many stories nowadays).

WCSB, the Cleveland State U student radio station, was turned into a private smooth jazz station (!) by bonehead university admins. This clip is the admins facing angry local callers

m.youtube.com/watch?v=qJWC...

CSU, Ideastream leaders address controversy over switch from student-run WCSB to JazzNEO

YouTube video by Ideastream Public Media

m.youtube.com

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Benjamin Tausig @burrata.bsky.social · 1d

Really proud of this event with Netiwit and @jwassers.bsky.social

Video below! Thanks to all who came, and who continue to resist fascism and authoritarianism globally, including by studying resistance to it.

Jeff Wasserstrom @jwassers.bsky.social · 1d

Video up of the event @burrata.bsky.social & I did at NYU, on music + protest + Thailand, moderated expertly by Margaret Scott & featuring as a special added speaker Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal (his comments on the Internationale, Pete Seeger & other topics begin 37:30 in) m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug_U...

Songs Beyond Borders: Thailand and Transnational Musical Connections

YouTube video by New York Southeast Asia Network

m.youtube.com

Benjamin Tausig @burrata.bsky.social · 4d

I'm super easy to tempt in that regard

Benjamin Tausig @burrata.bsky.social · 4d

Time will tell etc

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Benjamin Tausig @burrata.bsky.social · 4d

Thanks for sharing. This is important stuff to know about!

Benjamin Tausig @burrata.bsky.social · 4d

I think there are more reasons for the volume of submissions than popularity alone, but I fully agree that colleges should be teaching it and publishers should be covering it!

Benjamin Tausig @burrata.bsky.social · 4d

they're still together, they could still shock the world

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Benjamin Tausig @burrata.bsky.social · 4d

For a time there was a lot of discussion about provincializing North American scholarship, pushing for global collaborations and inclusion. I guess my point is that I suspect that this provincialism is now officially happening ... but that it is not being initiated by North Americans.

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Benjamin Tausig @burrata.bsky.social · 4d

Would love to read about it (will dig)

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Benjamin Tausig @burrata.bsky.social · 4d

There's been ~three epochs of popular music studies: the first which focused on the Beatles and Elvis, bringing pop music into academic focus. The second, which sought to canonize Prince, Bowie, Queen et al in queering the field. And now a third, which has seen a turn to Asia. Generalizing a bit but

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Benjamin Tausig @burrata.bsky.social · 4d

Yes, these are common frameworks for the submissions we get! There's a lot here.

Benjamin Tausig @burrata.bsky.social · 4d

That I think we should be cognizant of, as an indication of where scholarship is happening and where it isn't, who is pushing it and who is retrenching. This matters to any scholar in any field. Our universe is changing fast, and right now.

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Benjamin Tausig @burrata.bsky.social · 4d

No shade to the scholars themselves. Again, music studies (and other fields) urgently need to de-center North America. In a lot of ways this moment is exciting and overdue.

But there is simultaneously a specter of soft power, the kind that has always and will always be at play in academia ...

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Benjamin Tausig @burrata.bsky.social · 5d

By contrast -- and in ways I don't have the knowledge to explain, but the effects of which are obvious -- Chinese and Korean institutions are clearly offering some combination of incentives and resources to generate scholarship, even on a topic like popular music.

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Benjamin Tausig @burrata.bsky.social · 5d

At the moment, for reasons you already know, scholars/students at US institutions are under enormous stress. There is so little time, space, and funding, and so many collateral challenges, that it can feel monumental to simply get work out the door. Fields demand it, but there are no resources.

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Benjamin Tausig @burrata.bsky.social · 5d

(Most work on China comes from scholars at Chinese institutions, and probably 75% of the work on K-pop is from scholars at Korean institutions).

But as a measure of how much support is coming from academic institutions, and how much these institutions are asking ppl to publish, it feels important

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Benjamin Tausig @burrata.bsky.social · 5d

This is neutral in and of itself -- the submissions are sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes right for the outlet, sometimes not. And I don't think whatsoever that there is any problem with so many submissions coming from outside the US -- to the contrary, I think it rules.

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Benjamin Tausig @burrata.bsky.social · 5d

I've been watching something recently that feels notable, maybe like a barometer of soft power and the academy. Namely, as co-editor of JPMS (Journal of Popular Music Studies), we get many submissions every week.

Probably half of these focus either on Chinese music broadly, or Kpop in some regard.

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