Michael Gallope
216 Pillsbury Dr SE
Minneapolis,
MN
55455
My research and teaching is interdisciplinary, and ranges widely across philosophy, critical theory, music, media, and the arts. A key area of focus for me are investigations of the way music is linked to varied philosophical, spiritual, social, and economic systems. In my first two books, I investigate historical responses to the disorienting impact of musical sound, an impact that is perennially difficult to describe. In Western musical aesthetics, the ineffability of music was traditionally associated with autonomous, abstract, and non-semantic conceptions of music. My first book, Deep Refrains: Music, Philosophy, and the Ineffable (University of Chicago Press, 2017) challenges these conservative associations by showing how music’s ineffability spurred an array of modern European philosophers (principally, Bloch, Adorno, Jankélévitch, and Deleuze) to address ethically engaged questions and problems that reside at the limits of conceptual reasoning.
My second book, The Musician as Philosopher: New York's Vernacular Avant-Garde 1958-1978 (University of Chicago Press, 2024), turns to the philosophical thinking of musicians themselves. Through the prism of five case histories drawn from the postwar avant-garde in New York—David Tudor, Ornette Coleman, the Velvet Underground, Alice Coltrane, a single chapter on Patti Smith and Richard Hell—the book explores the ways musicians exploited and amplified music's ineffable properties in light of various mystical and ecstatic metaphysical beliefs. In the process, The Musician as Philosopher contends that these musicians—all of whom are understudied, and none of whom are traditionally taken to be composers—not only challenged the rules by which music is written and practiced, but also confounded and reconfigured gendered and racialized expectations for what critics and audiences took to be legitimate forms of musical sound. Future projects include a historical study of the emergence of music as a commodity, a new theory of aesthetic autonomy appropriate to the creative work of the 21 century, and a co-authored book on spirituality in the era of late capitalism.
As a musician, I have worked in a variety of genres that span a range of experimental music, rock, and electronic dance music. In Minneapolis, I play with the minimal-ambient band IE, which has toured across North America in dozens of appearances to support the release of three full-length albums: Pome (Moon Glyph, 2018), Junk Body (ISH/Shinkoyo, 2023), and Reverse Earth (Quindi, 2025). Recent performances were featured at the Big Ears Festival (Knoxville, TN), Roulette (Brooklyn, NY), Zebulon (Los Angeles, CA), Constellation (Chicago, IL), Experimental Sound Studio (Chicago, IL), Milwaukee Psych Fest (Milwaukee, WI), Mississippi Studios (Portland, OR), and yearly performances at the Drone Not Drones Festival at the Cedar Cultural Center (Minneapolis, MN). I have also collaborated with Oneida, The New Pope, Man Forever, Skeletons, and a number of solo artists in the arenas of noise, drone, rock, and improvisational music. From 2010–18, I performed, toured, and served as co-manager for Sierra Leonean singer Janka Nabay, and collaborated with him on two full length albums released by David Byrne's label Luaka Bop. The band's performances were featured at The Museum of Modern Art, The Getty Center, The Kennedy Center, The Arab American National Museum, The Chicago World Music Festival, Bonnaroo Music Festival, P.S. 1 Warm-Up, Prospect Park / Celebrate Brooklyn, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and at international festivals in Denmark (Roskilde), Netherlands (Lowlands), Portugal (Milhoes De Festa), Germany (By the Lake), Poland (OFF), Norway (Øya), Spain (Sinsal Audio), Italy (Pop Sagra Urbana), and the United Kingdom (Walthamstow Garden Party).
In addition to working as a faculty member at the University of Minnesota, I have served as Visiting Professor (Spring 2025) and a Visiting Associate Professor (Spring 2021) at the University of Chicago where I also taught as a Harper Schmidt Fellow in the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts (2011-2013).
Finally, as an expert in philosophies, theories, and histories of the struggles against social inequality, I am actively involved in debates on academic freedom, free speech, unit autonomy, shared governance, general education curricula, the defense of human rights for all, anti-war advocacy, and the future of the University. This work of outreach and public engagement fulfills our obligation under Board of Regents policy "To extend, apply, and exchange knowledge between the University and society by applying scholarly expertise to community problems, by helping organizations and individuals respond to their changing environments, and by making the knowledge and resources created and preserved at the University accessible to the citizens of the state, the nation, and the world."
Educational Background
- Advanced Certificate: Poetics and Theory, New York University, 2011
- M.A., Ph.D.: Historical Musicology, New York University, 2011
- B.M., B.A. Visual Arts: , Oberlin, 2003 -
Specialties
- Music and Sound Studies
- Philosophy and Intellectual History
- Music of the African Diaspora
- Cultural History and Ethnography
- Global Modernisms