Events
GIEEMP Seminar | Music and Hope in the Age of American Decline
PERMANENT SEMINAR OF THE RESEARCH GROUP ON ETHNOMUSICOLOGY AND STUDIES IN POPULAR MUSIC
28.05.2025 | 4 PM | NOVA FCSH, Av. de Berna, Tower A (Lisbon) | Room A209 - Floor 2 | Zoom Room
Free access, in person and online.
Music and Hope in the Age of American Decline
Matt Sakakeeny | Tulane University
A sense of permanent insecurity has become pervasive in the contemporary United States. Faith in the American Dream’s core promise of collective social improvement is all but extinguished. For the most vulnerable Americans, the perpetual “time of crisis” demands a “politics of hope,” such that present actions are guided by dreams of getting somewhere in the future. In New Orleans, Black families participating in The Roots of Music afterschool program see music as an antidote to economic insecurity, substandard education, criminality and violence, policing and incarceration, and other social harms. They pin their hopes on the idea that music saves lives. Based on seventeen years of observing rehearsals, attending performances, traveling on field trips, and interviewing students, parents, and teachers, this talk presents the Southern tradition of black marching bands as a protective space for nurturing and enjoying life in the present, as well as a productive activity for fostering prosperity and wellbeing in the future.
Matt Sakakeeny | Associate Professor of Music at Tulane University who studies the intersection of music, sound, and politics. He is the author of the book Roll With It: Brass Bands in the Streets of New Orleans and co-author of the edited collection Keywords in Sound. Matt’s articles have appeared in American Anthropologist, the Annual Review of Anthropology, Ethnomusicology, Black Music Research Journal, and elsewhere. He’s received grants from the Spencer Foundation and the National Humanities Center for his next book about marching band education in New Orleans. Matt is a board member of two nonprofit organizations, The Roots of Music afterschool program and the Dinerral Shavers Educational Fund. He has lived and worked in New Orleans since 1997.
