Michael Drewett

Associate Professor
Sociology
Rhodes University
South Africa

Biography

"My central research area is the politics of popular music and the censorship of popular music in particular. My PhD focused on the censorship of popular music in South Africa during the apartheid era. I co-ordinated a national exhibition on popular music censorship in South Africa (at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown in 1999) and a sub-section on resistance music in South Africa for an exhibition hosted by the Museum of World Culture in Gothenburg, Sweden in 2008 and 2009. I produced, researched and co-scripted Stopping the Music, a documentary film about anti-apartheid musician, Roger Lucey. It premiered in Copenhagen at the 2nd World Conference on Music and Censorship in September 2002, screened by the Danish Film Institute. It has since been screened at film festivals and censorship workshops worldwide, including: The WOMEX (World Music Exhibition) in Essen, Germany October 2002; the Folk Alliance Conference in Nashville, U.S.A. February 2003; One World 5th Annual International Human Rights Festival in Prague, Czech Republic April 2003; 3rd International Gathering for Freedom of Expression in Istanbul, Turkey in July 2003; the Zanzibar International Film Festival in August 2003, the Durban Film Festival, South Africa October 2003; Freemuse Censorship of Music Workshop in Harare, Zimbabwe March 2005, the Clandestino Festival in Gothenburg, Sweden May 2005, Wordfest, National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, South Africa in July 2006. I have also overseen the re-release of the anti-apartheid A Naartjie in our Sosatie (1999) compilation cd and compiled a new compilation cd of South African resistance music, Shot Down (2007), working in conjunction with Shifty Records. I am on the advisory board of Freemuse, an international organization concerned with the freedom of musical expression (http://www.freemuse.org/), the Chairperson of the South African branch of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM) and the co-ordinator of the Cutting Grooves Censorship of Popular Music archive (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cutting-Grooves/195586047155683). I am presently involved in developing the archive and researching different issues relating to popular music including popular music and war, popular music censorship, politics and popular music in South Africa and issues relating to sex, gender and popular music. I was awarded a visiting fellowship to the International Institute for Popular Culture, University of Turku, Finland from September to November 2013. I was awarded a visiting fellowship to the International Institute for Popular Culture, University of Turku, Finland from September to November 2013. "

Research Intrest

"Representations of warfare in popular music and popular culture The Censorship of Popular Music Popular Music Sex, gender and popular culture Teaching Sociology"

List of Publications
Michel MM, Chen Y, Geisler WS, Seidemann E (2013) An illusion predicted by V1 population activity implicates cortical topography in shape perception.Nature Neuroscience 16: 1477-1483.
Drewett, Michael (2007), ‘The eyes of the world are watching now: the political effectiveness of “Biko” by Peter Gabriel’ in Popular Music and Society Volume 30 Number 1.
Drewett Michael (2008)Developing a Retro Brand Community: Re-releasing and marketing Anti-Apartheid Protest Music in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Consumption, Markets and Culture 11.
Drewett Michael (2011)The Road from Crisis to Catharsis in the Songs of Roger Lucey. Int Rev Aesthetics Sociology Music 42.