Global Music History Decolonializes Western Music History

Following on my previous post, I disagree with the use of the term “decentering” to refer to global music history’s impact on Western music history. In fact, the lack of specificity in “decentering” is precisely what I would refer as a “move to innocence,” to borrow Tuck and Yang’s term, indicating vagueness about what precisely is being resisted. The centrality of indigenous voices in decolonization in settler colonies is indisputable, and the viewpoints in Eve Tuck’s article “Decolonization Is Not a Metaphor” (coauthored with K. Wayne Yang) should therefore be given full consideration in settler colonial contexts. However, I have only ever heard that argument from settler colonizers, who focus all their attention on that term. One side effect of the exclusive focus on the (in)appropriate use of “decolonial” is the foreclosing of a fuller discussion of colonialism and the countering of it. Colonization does not only refer to the occupation of land. It also refers to cultural and psychological occupation, in the form of 100% Western music history courses even up to the early twenty-first century in Singapore (although the British left in 1959), and a rising gap in contemporary China between growing populations of students of Western music, versus falling numbers of students of Chinese music. Western music history as propagated by Western universities and academic societies is a colonial form, and thus global music history counters colonialism—if only inadequately and partially—in the retelling of music history from the viewpoints of myriad geographies. The countering of colonialism through global music history is partial because of the depth of colonialism in universities and academic societies that occupy indigenous lands, propagate Eurocentrism, conduct imperial surveys of global geographies and cultures, have historical links to slavery and the profitable opium trade that was forced by the West onto unwilling global partners, and mine BIPOC counterhegemonic knowledge, with elite universities commodifying it into DEI courses. However, focusing exclusively on the incompleteness of countercolonial actions such as global music history, and restricting the conversation to land only, results in the reduction of multiple colonialisms into settler colonialism (in the Americas and Australasia), thereby erasing other (Asian, African) geographies and colonialisms from the conversation. Western universities and academic societies occupy indigenous lands, AND also propagate colonial forms such as Western music history that projects purported Western superiority, which is the core justification for expansionist imperialism in Asia and Africa. The teaching of global (including Asian, African, and Afro Asian) music history therefore counters the colonialism of Western music history. The point is to counter the specific colonial aspect of Western music history by targeting the way in which it has excluded other histories, rather than Western music history per se (in its totality), which is one among many histories that should be studied.

Criticizing the Misuse of “Decolonization” Is Important—But Having a Full Conversation About Colonialism and Ways to Counter It Is Just as Important

Following Tuck and Yang’s influential article “Decolonization Is Not a Metaphor,” the emerging consensus in Euro-North America and Australasia (the “West”) is that decolonization must pertain to the return of land. In that sense, universities and academic societies can never decolonize unless they return lands which they occupy. “Decentering” has therefore become a preferred term for curricular changes that attempt to be more inclusive. Certainly, “decolonization” can and has been misused. Student-centering pedagogies, for example, are important but do not necessarily counter coloniality.

The centrality of Indigenous voices in decolonization in the West is indisputable, and the viewpoints in Eve Tuck’s article coauthored with K. Wayne Yang should therefore be prioritized in Western, especially settler colonial contexts. However, what is less often appreciated is that the focus on replacing “decolonial” with “decentering” can result in a simplified conversation. What the stringency of use of “decolonial” should point to is not just the issue of land, but the depth and complexity of universities’ colonialism that should always be referenced. 

There are three main points to be made about universities’ and academic societies’ colonialism. 

1. Universities and academic societies occupy indigenous lands. 

2. Universities and academic societies have maintained and exported Eurocentrism, conducted imperial surveys of global geographies and cultures, and have historical links to slavery and the profitable opium trade that was forced by the West onto unwilling global partners. 

3. Universities and academic societies mine BIPOC counterhegemonic knowledge, with elite universities commodifying it into DEI courses.

Restricting the use of “decolonial” should always be accompanied by a fuller discussion of universities’ and academic societies’ colonialism—the point is not just to berate those who misuse the term “decolonial,” however justified it may be. Furthermore, a map for how to counter universities’ and academic societies’ colonialism should always be provided; otherwise, universities and academic societies are simply allowed to maintain the colonial status quo. Granted, the depth and complexity of universities’ and academic societies’ colonialism means that any action taken to counter their colonialism is always partial, inadequate, and entangled with their colonial legacy. However, the alternative is to just maintain universities’ and academic societies’ colonial status quo, as oppose to the entanglement of attempts at countering their colonialism, alongside their colonial legacy. Here, then, are some partial and inadequate ways in which universities and academic societies can counter their colonialism, in relation to Indigenous peoples whose lands were stolen, and black people whose labor was stolen.

1. Return indigenous lands. 

2. Partner with indigenous/black businesses

3. Incorporate indigenous/black topics in music curricula

4. Increase the proportion of indigenous/black students and faculty

In addition, universities and academic societies have to come to terms with their imperial legacy which is projected externally towards the world. Universities and academic societies are the corollaries of Western imperialism that has touched all geographies, resulting in 100% Western music history courses even up to the early twenty-first century in Singapore (although the British left in 1959), and a rising gap in contemporary China between growing populations of students of Western music, versus falling numbers of students of Chinese music. Calling the countering of Western music history “decentering” misses the point that Western music history is a colonial cultural form cultivated by Western universities and academic societies and projected globally. Calling it decentering leaves Western music history unaccountable for the part it plays in colonialism. Cultural and epistemic colonialization is colonialization. Cultural colonization is how "subjects that are socially located in the oppressed side of the colonial difference [are made] to think epistemically like the ones on the dominant positions" (to quote Ramón Grosfoguel in "The Epistemic Decolonial Turn"). Cultural colonization is the reason for Rishi Sunard and Clarence Thomas. It applies equally in contexts of historical and continuing settler colonization and minoritization (in the West), as well as historical and continuing exploitation colonization (beyond the West). Here, then, are some partial and inadequate ways in which universities and academic societies can counter their colonialism.

1. Return formerly and currently colonized lands outside the West which are still occupied.

2. Partner with businesses owned by peoples, usually BIPOCs, from formerly and currently colonized lands outside the West 

3. Incorporate topics in music curricula (including global music history curricula) on peoples, usually BIPOCs, from formerly and currently colonized lands outside the West. The point is to counter the specific colonial aspect of Western music history by targeting the way in which it has excluded other histories, rather than Western music history per se (in its totality), which is one among many histories that should be studied.

4. Increase the proportion of peoples, usually BIPOCs, from formerly and currently colonized lands outside the West, among students and faculty

The three groups of points above move the conversation to the depth and complexity of universities’ and academic societies’ colonialism, as well as ways of countering it in partial and inadequate ways, as opposed to concluding the conversation with berating those who use “decolonial” inappropriately. It is just as important to explicate how universities and academic societies are colonial, and point to ways of countering it.

Fred Everett Maus, "Queer Sexuality and Musical Narrative"

This is a draft of a chapter that has been accepted for publication by Oxford University Press in the forthcoming book Queer Ear: Remaking Music Theory edited by Gavin Lee, due for publication in 2023. Preorder the $39.95 paperback with a 30% discount code AAFLYG6 here. 

Preamble by Gavin Lee

My forthcoming edited volume Queer Ear has no afterword, a book structure that perhaps reflects the multivalence within the book and its open-ended possibilities. Here, having convened the recent Queer Sinophone Sound symposium (2023) (Western Sydney University and University of Sydney), I lay out one response to the very book I had edited. As an editor, I might be seen as an insider to the project, but I write in this response from another part of my identity that is more than queer. 

In prominent intellectual Wang Xiaobo’s essay “On the Question of Homosexuality,” the reader of today is presented with what is taken as self-evident truths in most of the English-speaking world, e.g. homosexuality is not a choice and hence not a moral issue. (Wang’s essay reflects on the pioneering Their World: A Look at the Chinese Male Homosexual Community, which he had co-authored with his opposite sex partner Li Yinhe, who was the lead researcher, in 1992.) But what is interesting is Wang’s essay’s intervention in the sociohistorical juncture of post-1978, post-Cultural Revolution China in which it was written. The fundamental issue in the essay is that homosexuals should not be oppressed based on prejudice, rather than US queer theory of the 90s (Butler, gender performance etc.), which Li was invested in (Li revealed in 2014 that she has been with a trans male partner for the past 15 years, after Wang's death in 1997). Wang’s essay contained what was conceivable and most urgent for him to articulate within the specific sociohistorical juncture of 1990s China. 

Similarly, Queer Ear is very much the product of its context, where queer discourses can be articulated. In contrast, while organizing the Queer Sinophone Sound symposium, I encountered composers who remained in the closet, and performing groups who did not want to be written about for fear of state surveillance. This led me to think about the conditions of possibility for there to even be a queer world, a queer soundscape, a queer ear—just as Wang’s essay is constricted by his time and place. Growing up in Singapore in the 90s as a closeted English-speaking teen, the queer world I discovered was one of US queer writers such as David Leavitt, Edmund White, and Paul Monette. There were just a few big bookstores where a wide range of fiction and nonfiction books (entirely or almost entirely in English if I recall correctly) could be found. Aside from the newly invented internet chat rooms called IRC (Internet Relay Chat) (as obsolete as phone lines today), US queer literature was the only other queer space I found within the "Gender Studies" section of those bookstores. I knew being gay was terrible from my parents, who told me gay people were mentally ill, and from someone I had briefly dated in high school, who had been told by his best friend that homosexuality is a sin—and dating me means their friendship is over. 

Just recently, I reread one of my favorite passages from David Leavitt’s Equal Affections (a beloved purchase from the Borders bookstore in the 90s in Singapore), about how Walter, going through his mid-life crisis, is contemplating leaving Danny. Walter peers out from his office in one of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center towards the other tower. Reading this passage, I recognized a temporal disjuncture between Leavitt’s 1989 novel and the post-9/11 era. There are other references in the novel which feel dated, include men who felt they had to be discrete in kissing goodbye. The present moment is sometimes understood to be one of queer expression and fierce resistance—yet we might ponder whether this queer universe is universal within places like San Francisco, where just last night, I had witnessed a powerful drag performance by Indigenous artistes Aunty BB Anuhea and Piss E Sissy, versus in the sea of red surrounding urban dots of blue. What is the extent to which queer resistance is possible in other times and places—in China of the 90s, or even today, and in Singapore, where gay sex was decriminalized only in 2022 (but queers were simultaneously denied marriage equality in the same session of parliament)? How does one weigh the option of critiquing closeted composers and gay teens in other geographies, from within spaces of queer expression and resistance, whether in San Francisco or in US queer music academia, queer music theory? Does critique mean embracing the inchoate articulation of queerness in the vast majority of geographies outside the Europe/US—or does it mean eviscerating global queers for not being queer enough? Even for those in Europe/US, queers may be “born in the homes of the oppressors”—to use Paul Attinello’s memorable phrase (in his afterword to my Rethinking Difference in Gender, Sexuality, and Popular Music). Many queers continue from a young age to (as I stated in my introduction to Queer Ear) “collect scraps at the heteronormative table, recycling and reusing bits and pieces of an often hostile world to fortify our closets.” This is the context in which we should understand Maus’ analysis of how Edward Cone hid his gayness within non-specific language such as: a “strange, unsettling element” that “persistently returns” and blossoms into “ingratiating” music offering “sensuous delights.” This shows us how even in oppressive contexts, queer listening with a queer ear has created safe inner spaces for those who had no other recourse, or were shaped by their contexts into believing that they didn’t. In Foucauldian terms, the articulated knowledge of the pre-2001 era is “connaisance,” whereas as relative outsiders to that era, present day writers such as Maus are able to see the conditions of possibility—“savoir”—which had shaped that articulated knowledge. (2001 delineates the work of the OG New Musicologists from the work of a later generation whose writings were produced in a climate of increasing LGBTQ+ acceptance as discerned through marriage equality.[1])

Maus’ “Queer Sexuality and Musical Narrative” is an incredible essay. Consider that, perhaps, music theory has been queer all along, and is now just coming out. Click here and enjoy!

Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/195RHN7_oDNRCCeo2eSQZ1uHzh3OT-hrh/view?usp=sharing  

Excerpt: 

"Now if one asks, as I did at the beginning of this section, how “Schubert’s Promissory Note” might relate to Cone’s gay male subjectivity, the answer is in part obvious, in part obscure. Here and in the subsequent discussion of Newcomb, I do not draw on detailed knowledge of these writers’ lives. My suggestions are based on generalizations about the lives of twentieth-century gay men and other LGBTQ+ subjects—specifically, about people growing up in respectable, mostly homophobic twentieth-century Euro-American settings. They are based on the experiences that could occur within certain cultural resources of identities, events, psychologies, and narratives. Recall, too, that Cone was born in 1917 and grew up in the South in a particularly homophobic time, amidst widespread pathologizing of homosexuality. Someone growing up gay, lesbian, or bisexual in such a society was likely to experience same-gender sexual attraction, when it arose, as, on one hand, alluring, on the other hand, discontinuous or incompatible with much of their environment, and therefore possibly quite frightening. This fits well Cone’s description of “a strange, unsettling element” that “persistently returns” and blossoms into “ingratiating” music offering “sensuous delights.” In Cone’s continuation to topics of disease and disaster, the account becomes obscure and problematic. It seems we are to understand Cone as having some unspecified personal relation to the distressing conclusion of this composition. It is possible to fill in details of a story that might match Cone’s personal situation, but what I can offer is purely conjecture. Here is one version. In this story about a young gay man, call it Narrative 2A, there is incompatibility between the serenity of the protagonist’s familiar world and a dawning awareness of forbidden sexual appetites, leading to delightful but dangerous sexual exploration. The protagonist finds himself in an impossible situation, unable to reconcile two aspects of his life that both seem indispensable. The outcome, which could be understood as fearfully imagined or as real, is a catastrophe in which neither his initial placid identity and environment nor his unfettered enjoyment of a new sexual life can survive. The music provides a vivid image of this catastrophe."

Notes

[1] 2001 also marks the commencement of US military unilateralism and the new multipolar global order with China's entry to WTO, accompanied by the reorientation of the Republican party around race as a distraction from the economic effects of US neoliberal offshoring made possible by China.

Thoughts on Timothy Jackson's New Writings

Distractionary self-victimization is a 21^st century form of racism, created in a context in which direct attacks of BIPOCs are inadmissible in liberal circles, thus some people make themselves looks like the targets of attack from BIPOCs. 

It is important that we note that distractionary self-victimization is a product of the white racial frame, a 21C version of the old racist trope of projecting violence onto the black other in order to validate racist attacks.

The discursive move is to universalize particularity, distorting the statements of critics of specific Jewish people through conflationary rhetoric that reframes specific conversations using Hitler and the Holocaust.

Recently, I did a search for Timothy Jackson and came across two of his pieces from 2022. The first was published in the US-based Jewish Journal, in which Jackson described the fallout from his Journal of Schenkerian Studies (JSS) issue as “harassment of Jewish scholars for objecting to antisemitic conspiracy theories.” The second piece, similar in tone, was published in The Times of Israel. Neither publications are known to be extremist, though the Jewish Journal is described as “right-center” by MBFC.

It is disturbing that the two publications above have accepted Jackson’s statements at face value, which signals a need for a deeper understanding of public discourse surrounding the JSS incident. This requires putting aside the JSS issue for a moment, and looking at larger patterns first. Fundamentally, the pitting of minorities against one another is a product of a white supremacist system in which both racist and even anti-racist discourse have been weaponized for attacking minorities. In reaction to the accusation of anti-black racism, Jackson responded by labeling his critics as antisemitic, tying his fate with that of Schenker. There is obviously much to be said about the entire controversy. Here, I would like to focus specifically on counter-accusations of being attacked by another social group, in order to distract from one’s own misconduct. I refer to this as self-victimization. The two key phrases here are 1) “one’s misconduct,” i.e. the people portraying themselves as a victim do so because they were accused of wrong-doing in the first place, and 2) “to distract,” i.e. the counter-accusation is intended to distract from that misconduct.

Readers can refer to Ewell’s article, in which he criticized Schenker, for evidence of the latter’s racism, acquired through assimilation to German nationalism. In an attempt to defend Schenker, Jackson resorted to anti-racist discourse protesting purported antisemitism against Schenker and himself, which has worked in so far as some publications have picked up Jackson’ writings. There is of course no defense for antisemitism, but what we are seeing with Jackson is a cynical appropriation of the discourse of antisemitism. By fallaciously constructing himself as a victim, Jackson distracts the public from his original misconduct. 

The key to successful distraction through self-victimization is to lump oneself into a broad category of people who are persecuted and marginalized, hoping to evade careful microanalysis of each individual case. Microanalysis, then, is precisely what we need to engage in. There is, fundamentally, a difference between Jewish people suffering and protesting antisemitism, and people of any ethnicity who use antisemitism as a distractionary counter-accusation. Self-victimization relies on outpours of public sympathy to overwhelm the analytical parts of our brains. In the case of antisemitism, there is a sprawling discursive apparatus designed to conflate 1) critics of specific Jewish people and asymmetrical Israeli state violence, such as Jasbir Puar, and 2) Hitler. Jackson is trying to relocate Ewell from category 1 comprising people who have criticized Jewish people such as Schenker for misconduct, to category 2 comprising anti-Semites. I note that Jasbir Puar has in the past failed the vetting for invitation to speak at music conferences because of this kind of cynical conflation. In this conflation, all critics of specific Jewish people are antisemitic, and all Jewish people are victims, regardless of whether they have issued racist statements like Schenker, or used antisemitism as a distractionary counter-accusation like Jackson. The discursive move is to universalize particularity, distorting the statements of critics of specific Jewish people through conflationary rhetoric that reframes specific conversations using Hitler and the Holocaust.

Speaking more broadly beyond the specifics of Jackson’s distractionary self-victimization and conflationary rhetoric, I wish to emphasize the importance of microanalysis of individual cases. Microanalysis is important in the larger discursive picture as well, because self-victimization has multiple valences. In the above, I discuss victimization of oneself. But there is also the white supremacist discourse of portraying minorities as self-victimizers, who supposedly insist on systemic racism that white supremacists consign to history ("how can Barack Obama be president if the US was racist?”). Even black intellectuals have criticized victimhood as an obstacle to black empowerment. General psychology sees victimhood as an obstacle to success. None of these forms of self-victimization fulfil the criteria of distractionary self-victimization—the use of counter-accusations to distract from one’s own misconduct. As we saw with Jackson, distractionary self-victimization is used for the purposes of marginalizing BIPOC people, accusing the latter as racist—the irony here lies in the fact that Jackson is himself a member of the Jewish minority. Regardless, if the public falls prey to such distractionary self-victimization, they participate in racism. It is important that we note that distractionary self-victimization is a product of the white racial frame, a 21C version of the old racist trope of projecting violence onto the black other in order to validate racist attacks. Distractionary self-victimization, when directed against BIPOCs, is racist, regardless of whether the perpetrator is white or BIPOC.

As a side note, I was brought to the concept of distractionary self-victimization by episodes 2 and 3 of the Netflix show, Million Dollar Beach House, based on a group of real estate agents working in the Hamptons. The show has been called racist because of the distractionary self-victimization by cast member Peggy, who subjected black cast member Noel to gaslighting. Episode 2 ends with the showing of a luxury home by Noel, representing the seller, to Peggy’s client Justin, who purportedly vets real estate investments for wealthy individuals. At the beginning of the showing, Noel tries to get a sense of which individuals Justin represents. At a later point, when Justin reiterated Peggy’s point that the house was overpriced (Peggy is shown arguing that in confessional interviews), the discussion gets heated. Upon Justin’s insistence on calculating the precise price point of the house, Noel becomes frustrated and the conversation seems to descend into a needless argument that I at least can’t imagine myself being interested in if I were really employed in Justin’s position—why bother to see a house that is as overpriced as Justin believes it to be? 

At the beginning of Episode 3, set in the office, Peggy accuses Noel of being “disrespectful” and “pompous” for asking who Justin’s clients were, and for retorting that one doesn’t ask for discounts when one walks into a “Rolls Royce” dealership. Noel himself admits that it wasn’t his best showing. What is of interest here is how Peggy is shown (no doubt through production manipulation) to be intentionally trying to embarrass Noel—if she really believed that the house was overpriced as stated in her confessional interviews, what possible motive could there be for bringing Justin to see the house, other than to show Noel up? In the heated office discussion, Peggy goes on the attack while painting herself as victim: Noel disrespected her by vetting her clients to see if they were qualified buyers; it was inappropriate for Noel to wear sunglasses to meet them (Justin was also wearing sunglasses); Noel was “pompous” though he was baited into it. One could wonder what is the appropriate adjective for a white colleague (Peggy) who organized a “lesson” (the showing) for their black co-worker (Noel) instead of actually trying to explain to the latter why the house should be differently priced.

Forcing Noel to push back by cornering him, Peggy then made a sumptuous meal out of her victimhood, distracting from her original intention which was to destroy the credibility of a co-worker. This kind of distractionary self-victimization is a 21^st century form of racism, created in a context in which direct attacks of BIPOCs are inadmissible, thus some people make themselves looks like the targets of attack from BIPOCs. Unfortunately, within white supremacy, BIPOCs have been entangled in racist acts as both perpetrators and victims. Microanalysis is needed to differentiate between legitimate “victims” of history who are nevertheless fighting back, and distractionary self-victimization by the Peggys and Jacksons of the world.