Fumi Okiji is a London-born, California-based scholar and performing jazz vocalist. She is Assistant Professor of Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkley where she works across black study, critical theory, and sound and music studies. Her research and teaching looks to black expression for ways to understand modern and contemporary life. Her book Jazz as Critique: Adorno and Black Expression Revisited (2018) is a sustained engagement with Theodor Adorno’s idea concerning the critical potential of art. She is currently working on a forthcoming book, Billie’s Bent Elbow: The Standard as Revolutionary Intoxication. Okiji is a member of Le Mardi Gras Listening Collective.
In this online talk, scholar and vocalist Fumi Okiji discusses the aesthetic sociality of music.