Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Muppets

Today in philosophy of music, we are talking about Hannah Kim's fantastic paper on Xunzi's philosophy of music, and I've paired that with a discussion of the rise and fall of disco. It's going to be a party, or maybe a ritual, or maybe both...

The process has always been the core of what matters. Somehow, many academics seem to have forgot that we are not purveyors of content or sellers of ideas. I feel like some Greek and Aramaic philosophers might have made points like that. But you don’t have to buy their arguments to get the point…

Sharing this over here to ask as well because it’s not metal/core/whatever

Every moment of this is fantastic!

Today I'm going to make my music students watch Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln, with Cliff Jordan on sax, and Eddie Khane on bass. I don't know what we are going to do with it. But we are going to listen together and see what that opens up... www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gNn...

I can’t stop showing people this. I can’t wait until we get to Laibach week in my philosophy of music class!

This almost perfect, and highly Laibach track captures my feelings about life, AI, and dancing my way through the end times. youtu.be/erR5PSfKo7w

Cool resonance between my two classes next week! T: Jenny Judge on resonance, music, and mind + Fela Kuti LIVE; then Nick Brancazio offering an enactive approach to gender and agency TH: Vijay Iyer on embodiment and improvisation; then Beck Todd on clowns, attention, and participatory sensemaking

Wadada Leo Smith is on until 9pm on wkcr.org ❤️👑🔥

Music theorists: Le Marteau sans Maître is so complex that it’s almost unintelligible… Boulez: well I was listening to a lot of Japanese Gagaku and Balinese Gamelan, and sought inspiration from these global traditions Me: yup it sounds exactly like you’d expect with those inspirations (see below)

I'm trying to decide if I made the right decision for philosophy of music this semester. I assigned a (difficult) paper for Tuesday and a musical work for Thursday--for the first 4 weeks. That's been a lot of work for me. but we got to do helpful dives into Bach, Shostakovich, Górecki, and Boulez

Been spending too much time listening to classical music. Time for a run through the Anaal Nathrakh catalog…

I just listened to this fantastic podcast with Vijay Iyer, and unified my philosophy of music students are open to it, I think I’ll replace the assigned reading with this. earexpansion.podbean.com/e/ear-expans...

I just listened to this fantastic podcast with Vijay Iyer, and unified my philosophy of music students are open to it, I think I’ll replace the assigned reading with this. earexpansion.podbean.com/e/ear-expans...

I really don’t want to teach Zoom class again tomorrow. I will be on campus, they will also be on campus, there has to be a better way to deal with all of this 🫠

The ASA is pleased to announce that it has funded a new workshop from its Major Grants Initiative program entitled "On Seeking a Community of Taste." This two-day event will be held at Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama on April 17-18, 2026. aesthetics-online.org/news/718878/...

Wait, is this a dead can dance album…

Teaching Górecki’s third symphony this week, and it’s basically depressive drone/doom for classical music fans, plus I am using the recording with Beth Gibbons so it almost feels less like a classical piece and more like something random I’d listen to because the vocalist from Portishead was on it…

I’ve been listening to a lot of Shostakovich over the past week, and that’s been one hell of an experience in 2026…

This is a wild story, but somewhere on here, or maybe it was on twitter before it died, I tell an almost identical story. Same company, maybe the same driver, but it was a mess and the driver was so damn angry…

I’m seeing increased use of this word and I just want to gently suggest that if there’s one word you can manage to remove from your vocabulary it should be this one. It was coined by a eugenicist who used it as a diagnosis to forcibly institutionalize and sterilize mentally disabled people.

Teaching philosophy of music is going to make me more of a fan of classical music than I’ve ever been. I hope I don’t get my hardcore kid or metalhead card revoked…

RT if you've never had a tab of ChatGPT open 'just to do quick research'

Both of my classes today are shaped by the long shadow of the European enlightenment. One class focuses on music, the other focuses on the scientific study of animal minds. But there are loads of intriguing crossovers I didn’t expect when I was planning these two classes…

New Element in the #PhilBio series by Varga, Latham & @edouardmachery.bsky.social—free to download until Jan 26! If you are looking for a nice introduction to experimental #philmedicine, with an overview of debates & challenges, this book is for you! www.cambridge.org/core/element... #philsky #HPS

What are your favorite examples of *recorded music* from outside the European tradition? I’m teaching philosophy of music, and I want to make sure my students hear as many different styles and traditions as I can show them!

Everyone is back at work, so I feel a bit less bad asking - any postdocs in psychgen coming up? I have a PhD in genetics of psychosis from King’s and postdoc experience from Mount Sinai in postpartum psychosis, autism, and ADHD. Thankful for those who sent suggestions, just wide net casting!

Teaching philosophy of music shortly… Quick, help…what is music?

I’m starting Philosophy of Music with Bach’s, Partita for Solo Violin #2 in Dm. I didn’t grow up with classical music, so I went with a bunch of stuff that I knew I loved. But holy hell the more time I spend with this one, it keeps blowing my mind in new ways

There is something that you never really learn until you are pretty deep in the guts of the academic machine. The things you love, that you go into academia puruse, end up being replaced by various administrative tasks and ongoing attempts to keep the ship afloat...

I saw a lot of live music in 2025. These were my favorite sets, in roughly chronological order: zeta Coilguns Haunted Plasma Oranssi Pazuzu Throwing Bricks & Ontaard Oriska Lana Del Rabies Swiz, Hexvessel - Folk set Majority Rule Saetia Catharsis Great Falls

These are my top-25 albums of 2025

One of my students had been printing out the things we read for class; at the end of the semester, they cut them up, and put together a collage of the class, and gave it to me before heading out for winter break!

I hope I don't regret this, but I think I'll make my Philosophy of Music students pair up and do 6 ep conversational podcasts as the main assignment next semester. I will also assign scaffolded peer commentaries on the podcasts. I think it might be fun. But I've never tried anything like it before

I started re-reading Attali’s *Noise: The Political Economy of Music* because I’m working with an undergrad on a thesis and she stumbled across it…I had forgotten what a strange but interesting book this is

I struggle to end classes. Today I accidentally ran Aesthetics to the last minute before I was supposed to leave them to let them do evals, and as I was walking out said: “I have to go and it makes me sad because I’ll never see y’all again. Bye. Oh, I guess this is the aesthetics of ephemerality…”

When did Durham and NC more broadly become the center of innovative coffee roasting in the US?!

I’ve been having my Buddhist philosophy students give 3 min flash talks for their final assignment. I’ve seen 15 of them so far, and they’ve all been really good! I think I’ll probably do this kind of assignment again for lower-level classes

Today we are doing @politephilosopher.bsky.social and Aaron Meskin on record stores in my aesthetics class. I have a feeling that the students are going to get a download about all of the roles that record shops (broadly construed) have played in my life over the years…

Aesthetics friends: do you know of any good recent papers on depictions of trans and/or queer characters in film/fiction? A student asked for recommendations when we did rough heroes, and I’m wondering if there might be something good for us to end the semester with…

Life is wicked complicated now for a college student. The future is uncertain, the present is deeply uncertain. But it feels to me like giving them options to engage with, and to live *through* their engagements with philosophy, is still hitting for a lot of them!

Aesthetics friends: do you know of any good recent papers on depictions of trans and/or queer characters in film/fiction? A student asked for recommendations when we did rough heroes, and I’m wondering if there might be something good for us to end the semester with…

I’ve already sent roughly 4 hours trying to get this fixed, to no avail. But I am currently being charged roughly $500 for my most recent COVID shot, through a series of billing errors and insurance errors. This really shouldn’t be happening, and it’s really bumming me out

Introduce yourself with five concerts you’ve seen Iceburn Officer Jones And His Patrol Car Problems Oranssi Pazuzu Skinny puppy Stormo

Here's my review in Mind of Mazviita Chirimuuta's fantastic book The Brain Abstracted. @pessoabrain.bsky.social you'll be interested in this one! academic.oup.com/mind/advance...

Oooh this paper looks interesting. As someone who has had very few days without substantial pain for many years, the claim about inquisitive inertia strikes me as plausible. I would also say that there’s a self-directed form of inquisitive inertia too, but maybe they discuss that as well…

I miss having mental space to work on things I care about. Since my disability stuff kicked into higher gear, teaching overloads every semester, having a lot of advisees, and trying to swim through the hellscape of genAI has basically killed any potential for me to think creatively.

It's one of my favorite days of the semester...Val Plumwood day! www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09...

I just finished reading this super interesting book. It gave me a lot to think about, and I’d love to think more about the the subsequent rise of turntables, No Wave, Noise Rock, and experimental dub. Thanks to @vijayiyer.bsky.social for the heads up on this one press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...