about

BIOGRAPHY Here’s the bio that I usually send out upon request, so please feel free to use this:

Robin James is Editor for Philosophy and Music & Sound Studies at Palgrave Macmillan. She acquires books in political philosophy, continental philosophy, American philosophy, African-American, Latinx, and Indigenous Philosophies, and other areas of philosophy, as well as in Musicology, Ethnomusicology, Music Theory, Popular Music Studies, and Sound Studies. Send pitches and proposals to [email protected]

HERE is a link to the proposal form we use at Palgrave. The best way to submit a proposal is to attach a completed proposal form and any sample chapters (1-2 if a single-authored book, no samples beyond chapter abstracts for edited collections and Handbooks) to my Palgrave email.

Robin is also a writer and former professor of philosophy and popular music studies. She is author of three books: The Sonic Episteme: acoustic resonance, neoliberalism, & biopolitics (Duke University Press, 2019), Resilience & Melancholy: pop music, feminism, and neoliberalism (Zero, 2015), and The Conjectural Body: gender, race and the philosophy of music (Lexington Books, 2010). Her writing has appeared in venues such as Jezebel, The Guardian, LARB, Real Life, BELT Magazine, The New Inquiry, SoundingOut!, Hypatia, differences, and the Journal of Popular Music Studies. She has over twenty years experience teaching courses in philosophy, gender studies, and popular music studies.

She is currently working on two book projects:

  1. The Future of Rock and Roll: 97X WOXY and the fight for true independence. (Under contract with UNC Press). This is a book about the philosophy behind former modern rock radio station 97X FM/woxy.com. The station and its programming was driven by the idea that true independence is possible only when practiced with and for other people. The book argues that this idea of independence is what we need to fight the 21st century corporate mainstream, which is driven by the false idea that real independence is being left to fend for yourself.
  2. Good Vibes Only:orientations, horizons, and the biopolitics of legitimation. This book is in many ways the follow-up to The Sonic Episteme. It argues that discourses of “vibez,” “mood,” “aesthetic,” and the like translate the calculative practices behind speculative (i.e., post-Gaussian) finance capitalism into the terms of popular culture.

She loves dogs, gardening, running, and face-melting industrial techno.  You can listen to recordings of some of her lectures here. She is also a digital sound artist and musician, and also works as a member of citation:obsolete. Here is the most current version of Robin’s CV, including links to most of her published writing.

All inquiries not related to Palgrave, including freelance inquiries, should be directed to [email protected]