Audible Empire

"Audible Empire is an important, substantive, and significant volume containing essays that display a theoretical sophistication about an important range of musical, social, and political issues. In addressing the ways in which the production, distribution, and consumption of public music can illuminate the history of empire and other transnational practices, structures, and institutions, Audible Empire introduces new ways of thinking about music as a social force." - George Lipsitz, coauthor of The Fierce Urgency of Now: Improvisation, Rights, and the Ethics of Co-Creation

"This significant volume does major intellectual and pedagogical work, helping to clarify just what Fanon meant by 'epistemological violence' and Foucault by the 'invisible but known' character of what has been left out of music scholarship. Containing terrifically original pieces of deep scholarship, Audible Empire promotes searching and expansive thinking that will advance critical musicology."
- Steven Feld, author of Jazz Cosmopolitanism in Accra: Five Musical Years in Ghana

"'Empire,' for most of these authors, is not restrained to political empires. Instead, it entails a broad understanding of declining national sovereignty, modern capitalism, and multinational enterprises, all reflected by and in sound. That gaze alone makes this a dynamic and interesting book for historians to consult." - Jessica Gienow-Hecht, Canadian Journal of History

"Audible Empire is a project admirably conceived and executed, consistent in its compelling, well-written, and timely scholarship." - Ruth E. Rosenberg, Notes

"Audible Empire is a topical book that presents in-depth case studies which, when read alongside each other, allow for comprehensive explanations on the role of music in the context of empire." - Christin Hoene, Social History

"Audible Empire . . . offers a complex, far-reaching, and sophisticated set of perspectives for considering various constructions of empire and a wide range of sonic acts that have been and continue to be interconnected." - Sindhumathi Revuluri, Music and Letters

"Are these varied works of scholarship meant to critique global politics, music, listening, and empire? Or are they intended to interrogate how the idea of critique operates in the context of those forces? Much of the power of this anthology lies in its refusal to resolve that question, and in fact to emphasize the many ambiguities that it brings to the surface." - Jonathan Schloss, Journal of Popular Music Studies

"The central drama of Audible Empire might be described as the divorce between the title words: an inevitably messy split followed later by the establishment of amicable relations. This very disconnection may prove the book’s signal contribution to musicology, ethnomusicology, sound studies, and postcolonial criticism at large. It points beyond a scholarly paradigm in which human perceptions are forever held in empire’s thrall: towards the not-always sensible domains across which empires unfold." - Gavin Williams, Twentieth-Century Music

"A welcome publication, adding the subjectivity and fluidity of music, sound, and listening to an already complex network of scholarly explorations about processes of empire formation. . . . This volume brings to the foreground more than an array of perspectives on the audible aspects of empire formation; it highlights the many tensions that are involved in writing history and thinking historically, about empires and about music making in general." - Cristina Magaldi, Journal of the Society for American Music