Music Matters kicks off the 2023-2024 with an exciting talk from Bard College’s Maria Sonevytsky, who will discuss her award winning book Wild Music. Wild Music tracks vernacular Ukrainian discourses of “wildness” as they manifested in popular music during a volatile decade of Ukrainian political history bracketed by two revolutions. From the Eurovision Song Contest to reality TV, from Indigenous radio to the revolution stage, Sonevytsky assesses how these practices exhibit and re-imagine Ukrainian tradition and culture. As the rise of global populism forces us to confront the category of state sovereignty anew, Sonevytsky proposes innovative paradigms for thinking through the creative practices that constitute sovereignty, citizenship, and nationalism.

This event takes place in the Harmony Building (1315.0031) on Monday 11th September from 16:00-18:00.