Author Event! Dan DiPiero's "Big Feelings"

Join us on November 14th at 6pm as we host Dan DiPiero in conversation with Robin James to discuss their latest book, Big Feelings: Queer and Feminist Rock After Riot Grrrl. Signed copies of the book will be available for purchase.

About the book:

In the past decade, a distinctive resurgence of indie music has seen young, queer, and feminist artists reformulating the genre with strategic reappropriations of ’90s grunge and 2000s-era pop. Big Feelings offers a nuanced analysis of these musicians and the socio-political crises informing their sounds. Dan DiPiero situates this new wave of indie music within the context of the emotional sensibilities and social orientations of a young generation flattened by an endless stream of everyday traumas. Listening closely to Soccer Mommy, Indigo De Souza, Jay Som, SASAMI, The Ophelias, Vagabon, boygenius, and more, Big Feelings traces points of resonance and connection that help fans perceive politics where it might first appear absent.
By bringing listeners’ experiences into the analysis, DiPiero shows how indie rock feminisms have shifted since the 1990s, rejecting overt political messages in favor of sonic catharsis, and reflecting the complex, ambivalent feeling of being young while the world burns. In reprising the sounds of an alt-rock associated in public consciousness with white male pain, Big Feelings music doubles down on the stereotypical association between femininity and emotionality to perform whole spectrums of feeling in varied states of overwhelm. In doing so, these artists draw attention to overlooked histories of women and queer musicians who have been forging indie rock all along, while also remaking how the music matters in the present.

About the author:

Dan DiPiero is a musician, writer, and Assistant Professor of Music at Boston University. He is the author of the books Big Feelings: Queer and Feminist Indie Rock After Riot Grrrl and Contingent Encounters: Improvisation in Music and Everyday Life, as well as articles in places like Jazz & Culture, liquid blackness, the Journal of Popular Music Studies, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and more. Prior to joining BU, Dan taught at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Ithaca College, Miami University, and the Ohio State University, where he earned his PhD in the Department of Comparative Studies in 2019. They also hold degrees from the California Institute of the Arts (MA, MFA) and Capital University’s Conservatory (BM). Their principal drum teachers are Joe La Barbera, Bob Breithaupt, and Bill Ransom. Dan is originally from Cleveland, Ohio; he writes and podcasts about popular music studies via the cry baby newsletter; and is currently working on a project tentatively titled, Crush: The Sound of a Feeling.

About the moderator:

Robin James is an independent scholar and editor. Her fifth book, Good Vibes Only: Phenomenology, Algorithms, and the Politics of Legitimation, is forthcoming with Duke University Press, and an expanded second edition of her book Resilience & Melancholy is under contract with The University of Michigan Press. She is also writing a volume on The Breeders’ Last Splash for Bloomsbury’s 33 1/3 series, forthcoming in 2028. Her previous four books include: (UNC Press, 2023), (Duke University Press, 2019), (Zero, 2015), and (Lexington Books, 2010). Her writing has appeared in venues such as , , , , , , , Hypatia, differences, and the Journal of Popular Music Studies, and elsewhere across the internet. She’s an expert in feminism/gender/race and popular music, pop music and politics, sound studies, electronic dance music studies, and contemporary continental philosophy (especially critical theories of neoliberalism and biopolitics). She is also working on new book project about the alt-rock-to-alt-right pipeline and what has happened to the aesthetics of masculine “cool” in rock music. She received her Ph.D. in philosophy from DePaul University in 2006, spent more than 15 years on the philosophy faculty at UNC Charlotte, and now works in publishing.

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