Berkeley English Lecturers and Postdocs

Khalil Sullivan

400 Wheeler
T/Th 2:00 - 3:00 pm

Specialties

Professional Statement

In an effort to investigate and understand the nature of sound, its corresponding forms and technologies, I began ethnographic work in the SF Bay Area--starting a street-busking band called MAD NOISE and interviewing numerous subjects who use the "street" as a site of active work and resistance.

My forthcoming dissertation will investigate how our modern obsession with sound's performance and preservation has influenced the US American culture industry. I will look at two moments when market forces in the US prompted discussions on the nature of sound distribution and preservation--the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and the Great Recession of the 21st century. Both periods have produced critical debates about American identity, and we can look at the popular song form and how it performs and circulates in the modern technologies of the urban space and the digital space. Within these debates we find artists from both periods wrestling with the problematic question of American cultural identity as well as the role of the artist in its relation to its many audiences.