Event Detail

"Hotline Bling: Gendered Technologies of  Humanity in R&B Music" is a free lecture by Alexander Weheliye, Professor of African American Studies, Director of Graduate Studies, Northwestern University, where he teaches black literature and culture, critical theory, social technologies, and popular culture. Weheliye says that his talk "will consider how Black singing voices in contemporary R&B music represent gendered technologies of humanness in their deployment of different  singing styles, the use of voice processing software, as well as the aspirational performance of luxury and leisure. In addition to charting the significant aesthetic, political, and economic shifts R&B has undergone over the last 25 years, I argue that contemporary R&B music--a genre frequently neglected in scholarly and journalistic debates about popular music--remains central to both Black culture and popular culture at large." The lecture runs from 4 pm to 6 pm in the Experimental Theater at Conrad Prebys Music Center. It's FREE and open to the public.