Dr Luis Manuel Garcia-Mispireta, Associate Professor in Ethnomusicology and Popular Music Studies at the University of Birmingham, has featured in Billboard music magazine on his new book Together, Somehow exploring the phenomenon of 'Corporeal co-presence.'
A lot of intimacy on the dance floor happens precisely because we don't actually know all that much about each other. We’re happy to sort of sit with that kind of stranger hood within the space of the party.
Dr Luis Manuel Marcia Mispireta
The feature explores what Dr Garcia Mispireta calls “stranger-intimacy,” a gesture that is simultaneously warm and impersonal. An interaction made permissible due to “corporeal copresence, a shared sensorium, and apparent aesthetic affinities.” Or as the academic author helpfully clarifies, “in the flesh, sharing space, atmosphere, and sensuous enjoyment.”
His main argument in his recently released book is that "the vagueness of how we get together and get along is actually kind of how we continue to do it." The feature goes on to explain that despite Garcia-Mispireta’s first-hand accounting, the book is not a memoir or exposé. It is an academic study categorized by its publisher as research in gender and sexuality, LGBTQ studies, music, ethnomusicology, cultural studies and affect theory.
Billboard makes clear that the combination of theory, history and first-hand accounting makes Together, Somehow highly readable as far as academic books go. This was important to Garcia-Mispireta so that the book’s readership might extend beyond his fellow academics and into the community it analyses.
The feature goes on to say that like all things involving humans, the behavior Garcia-Mispireta studies is nuanced. And messy. And constantly changing as culture evolves. Fortunately for researchers like him working to identify these knotty interactions, even if the ultimate goal isn’t to untangle them. In a world where people are increasingly divided, the appeal of togetherness is hard to ignore.
Read the full feature on the Billboard magazine website.
