One of my recent goals is to have more of a presence at Goodreads, and so it makes sense to write some reviews. When they concern my own book, I'll post a link here at my site--which is what I'm doing tonight with Michael North's Novelty: A History of the New. It's an off-the-cuff review,… Continue reading Brief Review of Novelty: A History of the New
My new new column is up at PopMatters: "Kanye West: The Iconoclast Gives In." Go there now! So, yeah, the essay is about exactly what you think it's about: how newness has led Kanye astray. (That's what you were expecting, right?) Unfortunately it's not exactly an artistic newness, which is why it's taken him into… Continue reading PopMatters Updates
Um, been a while. That means I've been busy.Updates are best found at the website for my book, Nothing Has Been Done Before.Here are a couple of direct links, though:Review of Nothing Has Been Done Before at PopMatters.An expanded version of the talk I gave this past week at the Prince from Minneapolis conference.
This talk was originally presented at the "Prince from Minneapolis" conference held at the University of Minnesota April 16-18, 2018. While it establishes the same arguments I make in the Prince chapter in Nothing Has Been Done Before about why Prince in the 1980s qualifies as an event (as the philosopher Alain Badiou defines the… Continue reading Prince and The Event
My most recent column at PopMatters is here. After being emotionally and ideologically messed with (in a good way) by the documentary Wild Wild Country, I had to write about Bill Calahan's song "Drover," how it's used in the film, and the many layers of meaning and response--which, like the film, kept expanding. Here's an… Continue reading PopMatters: Wild Wild Country
I'll be presenting a paper titled "Prince and the Event" at the Prince from Minneapolis conference this week. If you happen to be there, I hope we run into each other. Look me up on Twitter. My talk builds off of the chapter about Prince in Nothing Has Been Done Before but takes a little… Continue reading Prince from Minneapolis
I've been meaning to share this fairly recent interview with Boris Groys published in Krisis late last year. It's almost entirely a reflection on Groys' book On the New, which was originally published in 1992 and features heavily in my own book. Interviewer Thijs Lijster does an excellent job leading us through the book with… Continue reading Boris Groys on “On the New”
Pleased as punch to be reading at CCAD next week with my colleagues Janet Beard and Anna Soter, who also have new books out. Free to the public! Hope to see you there. Here's a link to the Facebook event page.
Nothing Has Been Done Before reviewed at PopMatters. Grateful for such a thoughtful review of the book!
I'm looking forward to this event coming up Thursday Feb. 15 in which I get to not only discuss Afrofuturism and pop music's political resistance, but I get to do so with Sharon Udoh of the terrific local band Counterfeit Madison. "Listening To: Pop Resistance" will be an informal listening event featuring plenty of music… Continue reading Listening To: Pop Resistance
Robert Loss 