Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department’s Proposed Exclusion Zone Policy Is Racist

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police is considering adopting a policy that prohibits people with arrest/criminal records from being in specific “high-crime” areas called “safety zones”. As the Charlotte Observer‘s Steve Harrison explains, Here is how they would work: If CMPD found an area…

On the Origin of “Gender” and “Race”

In my social & political philosophy class, we’re beginning the course by talking about social contract theory. The other day we considered Charles Mills’ claim that a theory of a prior “domination contract” would put us “in a position to…

“Music as Predictive Science”: Attali, music, & the science of forecasting

For as influential as Attali’s Noise has been, most scholars have sidestepped its central claim: “music is prophecy” (11). It feels really undersupported; Attali asserts that music anticipates or foreshadows social change, but he doesn’t seem to provide anything more…

A few quick thoughts on Stadlers’s “The Whiteness of Sound Studies”

Gus Stadler published a smart and needed critique of the whiteness of sound studies as a discipline. It’s a great piece, and not just because it quotes me, lol. I wanted to post a few informal reflections on the piece,…