Research Seminar: Music, Party, and Art Culture in New York City, 1970–83: Marginalised Histories, Community Writing, and Exploring the Margins in the Metropolitan Centre

Tim Lawrence will outline the trajectory of his research on New York during the 1970s and early 1980s. He will introduce a series of interconnected themes, including the central role played by marginalised communities during this period of the city’s musical history; the reason why New York became such an important source of musical innovation during the 1970s and early 1980s; the relationship between New York’s music scenes and the countercultural movements as well as the city's transition from an industrial to a post-industrial society; and the way in which received wisdom about three of the most important genres to flourish within the city during the 1970s and early 1980s—disco, punk and hip hop/rap—has distorted our understanding of these sounds as well as the city’s history.

 

 

Tim Lawrence is the author of Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970-79, Hold on to Your Dreams: Arthur Russel and the Downtown Music Scene, 1973-92, and Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor, 1980-83, all published by Duke University Press. He is a professor of Cultural Studies at the University of East London. He is also a founding member of two audiophile community dance parties, Lucky Cloud Sound System and All Our Friends (where he also DJs).