The Sound Studies/Media Studies working group invites you to a reading, listening session, and conversation with Will Alexander.The event will engage with his recently published book of poetry, Refractive Africa: Ballet of the Forgotten in connection with these musical selections:

• The John Coltrane Quartet, "Africa"
• Messiaen, "Quartet for the End of Time"
• The John Coltrane Quartet with Eric Dolphy, "India"
• Igor Stravinsky, "The Firebird Suite"

Will Alexander is an experimental poet and multidisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles, California. Beginning with his first collection of poetry, Vertical Rainbow Climber (1987), he has published numerous volumes of poetry, essay collections, long-form fiction, plays, automatic writing, and interviews that explore ideas of multi-dimensional (metaphysical, ecological, cosmological) experience, and transformation through the visionary possibilities of language. His most recent works publications include Across the Vapour Gulf (New Directions, 2017), Phosphenic Threadings (Evidence Publications, 2018),A Cannibal Explains Himself To Himself (The Elephants, 2019), Dialogics (conversation with Heller Levinson, Concrete Mist Press, 2020), and Refractive Africa: Ballet of the Forgotten (New Directions, 2021).

The Sound Studies/Media Studies is a Rutgers Center for Cultural Analysis (CCA) sponsored working group exploring a range of important intellectual and political questions emerging within the interdisciplinary field of sound studies. We consider ideas of and approaches to sound in relationship to music, literature, speech, poetics, listening, spirituality, ecology, and auditory media/technology/formats from a range of historical moments and from various disciplinary perspectives.

We invite you to join our ongoing activities by This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..