A virtual lecture entitled “Hired to be Overheard: Resonances of Chindon-ya on the Streets of Osaka” will be presented via Zoom by Marié Abe, associate professor, Musicology and Ethnomusicology, Boston University. Sponsored by the East Asian Studies Center and the EMIC Graduate Student Group for Studies in Expressive Culture.
Chindon-ya, dating back to the 1840s, are ostentatiously costumed street musicians who publicize a business by parading through neighborhood streets in Japan. Against the background of long-term economic downturn, growing social precarity and nuclear anxiety, Abe’s recently published book investigates how this seemingly outdated means of advertisement has recently gained traction as an aesthetic, economic and political practice after decades of inactivity. Drawing on the book, this presentation will address the central analytic hibiki (resonance), which highlights the processes in which chindon-ya’s sound is designed to elicit an affective response from a listener who simply “overhears” chindon-ya in public spaces. By examining the distinct mode of listening and sounding cultivated by chindon-ya, Abe will explore how ethnographic attention to the locally grounded form of audition reveals the limits of Western conceptions of listening that have normalized the way we think about the relationship between sound, space, history and listening subjects.
Marié Abe is Associate Professor of Music in the Department of Musicology and Ethnomusicology at Boston University. Broadly speaking, her scholarship explores the intersection of sound, space and sociality, bridging sound studies and cultural human geography. She is particularly invested in the politics of sound in social movements. On the side, Marié enjoys playing the accordion, and performs internationally with Debo Band, the Boston-based Ethiopian groove collective. She is also a co-producer of the NPR radio documentary “Squeezebox Stories,” which tells stories of Californian immigration history using the accordion as a common trope.
Closed. Registrants will receive an email with the Zoom meeting link.
If you require an accommodation to participate in this meeting, please email the event host, Dr. Danielle Fosler-Lussier (fosler-lussier.2@osu.edu). Requests made two weeks before an event will generally allow us to provide seamless access, but the university will make every effort to meet all requests.
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