Dr Caspar Melville
Key information
- Roles
- Centre for Creative Industries, Media and Screen Studies Senior Lecturer in Global Creative and Cultural Industries Centre of African Studies Member
- Qualifications
- PhD (London), SFHEA
- Building
- Russell Square: College Buildings
- Office
- 405
- Email address
- cm54@soas.ac.uk
- Telephone number
- +44 (0)20 7898 4249
- Support hours
- Wednesdays, 11:00am–1:00pm
Biography
I was born and raised in London, and started my career as a music journalist, writing for the independent black music press – Blues & Soul, Touch, Urb and Jazzid – and freelancing for other publications such as The Village Voice and The Sunday Telegraph.
I spent eight years living in San Francisco in the 1990s, during which time I worked as a columnist, DJ, radio presenter and club promoter, and helped start a short-lived jazz magazine, On The One. Back in London I worked as Media Editor and then Executive Editor at the online journal openDemocracy for five years. Before joining SOAS, in September 2013, I worked for eight years for the charity the Rationalist Association, where I was the editor of New Humanist magazine and the charity’s chief executive. My first book Taking Offence (Seagull books/Index on Censorship) was published in 2009.
I have a BA in American Studies (Literature) from Sussex University and an MA and PhD in Media and Communications from Goldsmiths College, University of London. My thesis – London Underground The Multicultural Routes of London’s Dance Music Cultures – explored issues of race, space identity and belonging in the interracial clubs of London, 1965-1998.
Listen to Caspar discussing his research on SOAS Radio.
Research interests
My main research interests include
- Afro-diasporic popular music: The production, consumption and circulation of “black” music (music of African origin), generic change, music in everyday life, dance and antiphony, The Black Atlantic, circum-Atlantic creative practice
- The history and cartography of genre: jazz, hip hop, Jungle, Grime
- The distinct artistic practices of the city, London in particular
- Ideologies of race and identity
- The history and future of cultural studies and critical theory
- Post-digital media - in particular issues of ownership, work and ideologies of utopia
A secondary area of interest involves the philosophical utility of reason, the scientific method, contemporary religion and non-religion, and free speech and offence. I recently authored a book about the history of dance music cultures in London, 1980-2000, called It's a London Thing: How Rare Groove, Acid House and Jungle Remapped the City (2019). The book is now available from Manchester University Press.
I am also a researcher on Bass Culture, a 3-year AHRC-funded research project on the history and impact of Jamaican music (reggae and its many offshoots) in the UK. Research outputs will include a major exhibition, film and online resource. I will be contributing a monograph scheduled for publication in 2019.
PhD Supervision
Name | Title |
---|---|
Helen Glaister | Collecting in Public and Private: The Ionides Collection of Chinese Export Porcelain, 1920-1970 |
Joseph Owen Jackson | Kahlil Joseph, New Media and the Audiovisual Atlantic: Music and Moving Images between Africa, America and Europe |
Mr Craig Ryder | Algorithms @ War: Influence as resistance in post-pandemic Sri Lanka |
Publications
Contact Caspar
- Telephone