with Nishlyn Ramanna (University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban)

In the proposed lecture, Ramanna shall argue that musical sounds encode social meanings – and thus function as utterances – because of their dual existence within 1) systems of intra- and intertextual relationships and 2) processes of dialectical interaction between texts and social contexts. Combining close musical analysis, ethnography, and the theoretical insights of critical discourse analysis, Ramanna will detail some ways in which narratives of selfhood and place become encoded in the specific harmonic, rhythmic, and melodic characteristics of (some of) the music played/heard by interviewed jazz musicians and concertgoers in post-apartheid South Africa.