The Song Readers: Rap Music and the Politics of Storytelling in Taiwan
Kay Kaufman Shelemay
This dissertation is an ethnographic study of Taiwan’s hip-hop scene and an examination of rap music’s emergence as a trenchant form of post-martial law narrative discourse. I focus on how performers have invoked rap as a storytelling practice to make sound and sense of the dramatic social and political transformations that accompanied Taiwan’s democratization at the end of the twentieth century. Arguing that rap provides a venue for young artists on the island to challenge the old metanarratives of the state, I explore the ethnic, gender, and class dynamics of rap’s interpretive community and perform critical analysis of the music’s poetics and politics
Colloquium on Pedagogy
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“That’s a Rap? Imagining the Multiple Origins of Taiwan Hip-Hop.” Delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology, New Orleans, LA, November 4, 2012.
“Locating the Local in Taiwan Rap: Strategies and Approaches.” Delivered at Discourse and Music: A Symposium, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, October 5, 2012.
“Conflict and Resolution in Taiwan Hip-Hop.” Guest lecture delivered to the Department of Musicology and Ethnomusicology, Boston University, Boston, MA, March 23, 2012.
“What’s Old is New Again: Traditional Musical Narrative and the Genealogy of Taiwan Rap.” Delivered at the Conference on Chinese Oral and Performing Literature (CHINOPERL), Toronto, Canada, March 15, 2012.
“Opening the Source: New Digital Archives and the PTT System in Taiwan.” Delivered at the Annual Conference of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, Cincinnati, OH, March 11, 2011.
“With This Song You Will Remember: Hip-Hop Activism, Typhoon Morakot, and Narratives of Disaster in Taiwan.” Delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Los Angeles, CA, November 12, 2010. (Recipient of the Barbara Barnard Smith Student Paper Prize from the Association for Chinese Music Research.)
“Records of the Historians: Rap Music, Historical Narrative, and the Politics of Storytelling in Taiwan.” Colloquium delivered to the National Taiwan University Graduate Institute of Musicology, Taipei, Taiwan, October 15, 2010.
“We Are So Strong, We Are Writing History: Taiwan Rap Records the Past.” Colloquium delivered at the Academia Sinica Institute of Ethnology, Taipei, Taiwan, June 2, 2010.
“Liveness, Living, and the Ghost of Mei Lanfang: Peking Opera Recordings On Stage.” Delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology Northeast Chapter, New Haven, CT, April 4, 2009.
“This Song Represents My Heart: Cultural Plurality and the Hybrid Voice of Teresa Teng.” Delivered at the Annual Conference of the Harvard East Asia Society, March 2008, and the Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Columbus, OH, October 25, 2007.
Harvard Fairbank Center Graduate Student Associate (2012-2013)
Richard F. French Prize Fellowship, Harvard University (2012)
Barbara Barnard Smith Student Paper Prize, Association for Chinese Music Research (2011)
Oscar S. Schafer Award for Excellence in Teaching, Harvard University (2010-2011)
Asian Cultural Council Humanities Program Fellow (2010)
Fulbright-Hays DDRF (2009-2010)
Fulbright IIE (declined; 2009-2010)
Harvard Asia Center Graduate Summer Research Grant (2008)
John Knowles Paine Fellowship, Harvard University (2007, 09,10, 11)
Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize, Harvard University (2003)