I scrutinize a “romance” with affect in music and sound studies which, I argue, should be historicized and addressed as a need or quest for a conceptual framework that searches for the new avenues to act politically in the political exhaustion of global neoliberalism. As an example, I use my ethnographic study of music activism in the post-Yugoslav cities in a period from 2013-2019, and the performing and listening of Yugoslav partisan, workers and revolutionary songs that are experienced as affectively rich and mobilizing in the political atmosphere in the region structured affectively by apathy and refusal
B.04 Guest lecture
COBISS.SI-ID: 44299309The course presented and discussed history and elements in the development of popular music (and culture) in Yugoslavia from the perspective of its affective and political aspects. The topics included short historical presentations of jazz, pop, rock and electronic music; live popular music venues (in Slovenia), media (radio), and various social, political, cultural and aesthetic dimensions of popular music (incl. censorship, authenticity and class dimensions) in former Yugoslavia. Lectures specifically accentuated the development of popular music from the perspective of its margins, especially in the case of systematic resistance to dominant trends. It showed, how we can discuss, through music, transformation of daily life in the area, identities, and ideologies.
B.04 Guest lecture
COBISS.SI-ID: 70593122The lecture offers an interpretation of affectionate and engaged memories of socialism as politically relevant, mobilizing and capable of intervening into regimes of historization of the socialist experience. Focusing on actual experience and memory practices of industrial workers in former Yugoslavia, this article suggests that their nostalgic narratives and reminiscences are not merely a way to negotiate better individual treatment and the broader society’s assistance. It argues that workers’ nostalgia for socialist times, expressed through affective and engaged narratives about socialist labour, is a critically important ingredient of their social agency and a prerequisite for their self-perception as political subjects.
B.04 Guest lecture
COBISS.SI-ID: 44962605