Centre for Creative Industries, Media and Screen Studies

Co-Chair

Centre of African Studies

Member

Name:

Dr Caspar Melville

Email address:

cm54@soas.ac.uk

Telephone:

+44 (0)20 7898 4249

Address:

SOAS University of London
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG

Building:

Brunei Gallery

Office No:

B302

Academic Support Hours:

By email appointment

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 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.

Programmes Convened

• MA Critical Media and Cultural Studies (2019)
• MA Global Creative and Cultural Industries (2018)
• MA Global Creative and Cultural Industries (2019)
• MA Global Creative and Cultural Industries (2020)
• Research Degrees (MPhil/PhD) Cultural Industries (2020)

Modules Taught

• Analytical Approaches to the Global Creative and Cultural Industries
• Arts, Culture and Commodification: Themes in the Global Creative and Cultural Industries
• Directed Study in Industry
• Dissertation in Global Creative and Cultural Industries
• Podcasting
• Studying Popular Music
• The Music Business
• The Music Business (Masters)

PhD Students supervised

• Amin Hashemi, Discourses in Popular Music of Post-Revolution Iran
• Helen Glaister, Collecting in Public and Private: The Ionides Collection of Chinese Export Porcelain, 1920-1970
• Joseph Owen Jackson, Contemporary Representations of the African Diaspora in the Films, Music Videos and Commercial Works of Kahlil Joseph

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. 

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Available for

• TV
• Radio
• Press
• Briefings

Regional Expertise

Country Expertise

Languages

Authored Books

Melville, Caspar (2019) It's A London Thing: How Rare Groove, Acid House and Jungle Remapped The City. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Articles

Melville, Caspar (2017) 'Valuing Tradition: Mali’s jeliw, European publishers and Copyright'. Journal of World Popular Music, (4) 1, pp 10-44.

Melville, Caspar (2014) 'The Politics of Everyday life: Why We Still Need Cultural Studies'. New Humanist magazine, (118) 3.

Book Chapters

Melville, Caspar (2017) 'Process as Outcome: Research Across Borders'. In: Shiach, Morag and Virani, Tarek, (eds.), Cultural Policy, Innovation and the Creative Economy: Creative Collaborations in Arts and Humanities Research. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 179-188.

Melville, Caspar (2015) 'Strange Routes: "Dancing Girl": Flows, Formats and Fortune in Music.'. In: Harris, Rachel and Pease, Rowan, (eds.), Pieces of the Musical World: Sounds and Cultures. Abingdon; New York: Routledge, pp 209-226.

This list was last generated on Wednesday, 28th October 2020, 00:46 Europe/London.