THE BLUES EPISTEMOLOGY

Music invents socialities and ways of being in the world through its creation and play by communities who respond to various systems of dispossession as well as unique experiences of love and joy. It forms and is formed by new thought and new practices, in the process building alternative stories, archives, and possibilities that remain dynamic, even if rooted. This class will focus on the histories and present of the “Blues epistemology,” which geographer Clyde Woods theorized as a method of reading and analysis that brings race, culture, geography, and political economy together. We will track the epistemology’s origins, performance, and impact throughout various literatures and pay particular attention to its relation to the Blues sounds and Blues people who conceived of it and to whom it continues to call.