2008 Pop Conference Bios/AbstractsJoshua CloverJoshua Clover is the author of three books:
The Totality for Kids (California 2006),
The Matrix (BFI 2005), and
Madonna anno domini (LSU 1997). His pop music cultural history,
1989: Bob Dylan Didn''t Have This to Sing About, is forthcoming (California 2009). He is a Professor of English literature and film studies at University of California, Davis
Panel(s):RiotousFriday, April 11, 2008, 4:00 - 5:45
Moderator:Deformation of MasteryFriday, April 11, 2008, 2:00 - 3:45
Abstract:"
Terrorflu, or Where in the World is M.I.A.?"
Kala might be thought of as an attempt to destroy the softimism of world music™. "Hands up guns out — represent now world town" -- it''s not an account of the singer''s personal experience, but the globe''s. Which is to say, the political is the personal. The album moves past the bubbly syncretism of Arular; goes looking for beat and a form and a hook for the enraged new world and finds a proliferation of each, which is its wonder. This talk investigates whether pop music can feel geopolitics, and whether such concepts as "terrorism" are as cavalier in pop music as they are serious in realityland, using M.I.A. (and especially Kala) as a kind of thought experiment about the possibility of culture registering, accurately and specifically, the temper of the times. The proposition is that an album''s truth is not in whether the artist "believes" it in some way, not in whether the artist has a legitimate claim on an album''s forms and content, not in its interior honesty, but in whether it can make visible a set of thoughts and feelings beyond the horizon of some individual''s personal experience.
