Concepts of aesthetic guilt and innocence amid larger anxieties about white hetero-masculinity in France -CANCELLED  Seminar

French popular music has a sleazy reputation. This is thanks in large part to Serge Gainsbourg, whose most infamous songs feature orgasms ("Je t'aime moi non plus", from 1969) and describe masturbation ("Variations sur Marilou", from 1976) or incestuous fantasies ("Lemon Incest", from 1984). But other French pop artists have been found guilty through association, and not always due to salacious content. In the critical reception of two recent artists, Sébastien Tellier and Philippe Katerine, sleaziness has become a signature aspect of the music itself, and is predicated on dubious artistic judgment rather than anything concretely salacious. My talk situates these concepts of aesthetic guilt and innocence amid larger anxieties about white hetero-masculinity in France.

Joanna Demers is Professor of Musicology in the USC Thornton School of Music, where she teaches classes on twentieth- and twenty-first-century popular and experimental music. She has published scholarly books and articles on music’s intersections with aesthetics, intellectual property law, ethics, and apocalypse. Her latest novel, The Eddan Collective, will be published by Angelico Press in 2023.