Colonial Boots, After All: Poland and the Case for Music Colonialisms Out of Plain View

About the Lecture: 

This talk suggests how studying music colonialism in the orbit of a nation state—Poland—that has been assumed peripheral in the history of overseas colonialisms can raise new questions about race and racism in Europe in the twenty-first century and draw attention to historiographic assumptions about music’s entanglements with racial capitalism. It begins with critical attention to twenty-first century commemorations of Nigerian-Polish jazz musician August Agboola Browne (1895–1976) and proceeds to register a breadth of musical materials out of Polish contexts entangled in colonialisms past and present. A contrapuntal reading of a chapter in the history of anthropology on the African continent  connects Polish anthropologist Jan Czekanowski to Euro-American musicology’s invention of “African music” and obsession with the phonograph. The talk also takes up contemporary lives of  old popular songs that intersect with, but are not fully explained by, Russian and German musical imperialisms to cast light on musical experiences of further (post)colonial subjects in Poland. By formulating a critique of the processes that have cleaved music out of Poland, and out of eastern Europe more broadly, from thinking about colonialism, the talk emphasizes that Polish music, Polish statehood, and Polish ideas about race, culture, and power were shaped by colonial projects against the backdrop of the nation’s own struggles for territory and sovereignty. 

About the Speaker: 

Andrea Bohlman is Associate Professor of Music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You can read more about Professor Bohlman's research and areas of expertise on her faculty page.