March 22, 2018, Woodland Theater, Seattle, WA Billed as “An Evening of New Music,” Noel Kennon has curated a 4-act program: Neil Welch (saxophones & houseplants), a trio of Lori Goldston/Greg Kelley/Dave Abramson (Cello, Trumpet, Percussion), a percussion duo of Melanie Sehman and Mike Gebhart called SymSynComCon, & Kennon himself... Continue reading

New out on Bandcamp, I have uploaded a series of experiments called "Test Subjects." I am also playing saxophone on "The Gilded Lily," with Gust Burns (a Cecil Taylor inspired pianist0 and master drummer Greg Campbell. AND, "Restless on a Plane," with drummer Dale Haley. Continue reading

One of my band-mates and I put together a little record we call, "restless on a plane." Alto sax plus percussion plus some minimal effects. Continue reading

Up tonight, Kahil El’Zabar with Corey Wilkes on trumpet, Alex Harding on bari sax. The thing about the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble is that they take a riff and then improvise over it—not too may notes, emphasis on rhythmic percussion, on establishing a groove and hoeing that row. Long songs with... Continue reading

June 29th 2016 Wally Shoup Quartet, playing Vito’s (at the corner of Madison Ave & 9th) in Seattle, WA Wally Shoup leads. He comes on, sets the song tone with his musky nasal alto saxophone, and then steps aside, leaning against a curved wall, the overseer. The 3-man rhythm section... Continue reading

On this recording, Matthew Shipp’s solo piano plays mostly delicate lines. There is no nu-bop, no electronic beats. His technique of playing dense chord throbbing into dense chord shows up only occasionally. Shipp is thinking aloud on piano. He is not interested in recognizable repeats, or singing tunes. It is... Continue reading

June 28, 2015 Review of Paal Nilssen-Love big band ensemble Large Unit. Poncho Concert Hall, Cornish College of the Arts, part of Earshot Jazz Spring Series. Seattle, Washington, USA. Large Unit: Jon Rune Strøm - bass; Andreas Wildhagen - drums; Paal Nilssen-Love - drums; Mats Äleklint - trombone; Christian Meaas... Continue reading

Walter Benjamin’s star has only grown brighter and more intense in recent years. While no single work can hope to capture the full range and depth of Walter Benjamin’s panoramic gaze, Alexander Gelley’s Benjamin’s Passages (Fordham University Press, 2015) is nonetheless an exegetical masterwork, emphasizing both conceptual constants and swerves... Continue reading

11-7-14 Pharoah Sanders (ts), William Henderson (p), Nat Reeves (b), and Joe Farnsworth (d). at Town Hall, Seattle. In the Great Hall. Maybe 1000 seats. Sold out house. A line of hopefuls outside behind a sign, waiting to repurchase the seats of no-shows. Pharoah Sanders at center stage in a... Continue reading

Review of Taylor Ho Bynum (cornet) with Cuong Vu (t), Carmen Rothwell (b) Dylan van der Schyff (d) at the Royal Room, Seattle, September 3, 2014. At the Royal Room. Taylor Ho Bynum with some locals. He’s on “bicycle tour” down the West Coast from Vancouver, BC to Mexico. I’m... Continue reading

Chiara, Bottici. Imaginal Politics: Images Beyond Imagination and the Imaginary. Columbia University Press, 2014. In the ongoing attempt to revitalize critical theory through a reworking of themes and techniques subordinated by modernity’s emphasis on subjective reason, Bottici re-thinks the concept of imagination, neither as subjective faculty nor as contextual overdeterminant,... Continue reading

Review of new avant jazz compositions by Gust Burns and Jacob Zimmerman, Gallery 1412, Seattle, WA, April 25, 2014 Continue reading

Lars Rensmann and Samir Gandesha (eds). Adorno and Arendt: Political and Philosophical Investigations. Stanford University Press, 2012. No other collection of essays in English takes up a directed study of Hannah Arendt and Theodor Adorno’s combined relevance to contemporary political theory. The essays variously compare, contrast and assess the two... Continue reading

If you're in the Seattle area and in need of architectural/design/art services, check out: www.anjaligrant.com Pay attention to the "Process" page, and the "Drawing Log." Good stuff! Continue reading

My spouse and I made a short film for a competition at Seattle's Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI). Entrants were asked to respond to the prompt: "History is ______." Here is our answer (just 1 minute and 19 seconds): http://mohai.indieflix.com/entries?p=2 Our film is #20. If you like it, please... Continue reading

The following review by Luke Neal appeared in Political Studies Review, January (11:1) 2013. The key sentence: "This reconstruction of Habermas is sure to be met with hostility and will inevitably boil the blood of any card-carrying Habermasian." Recently, there have been increasing attempts within the paradigm of critical theory... Continue reading

The first review of my book has appeared: Miller, Gregg Daniel. Mimesis and reason: Habermas's political philosophy. SUNY Press, 2011. 185p bibl index afp; ISBN 9781438437392, $75.00. Reviewed in 2012aug CHOICE. Miller (Univ. of Washington, Tacoma) argues that Habermas's formulation of a postmetaphysical theory of reason has yielded an unreconciled... Continue reading

The following review is forthcoming in Choice: Baxter, Hugh. Habermas: The Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy. Stanford Law Books, 2011. Baxter tracks the role of law from Habermas's early work to Between Facts and Norms, and beyond. Habermas's assessment of modernity, that humanity suffers when money and power colonize... Continue reading

Another proposal, this one for an upcoming conference at the University of Washington: Cosmopolitan Right and Intersubjectivity In this paper, I will investigate how the Kantian notion of “cosmopolitan right” (Perpetual Peace) stands with regards to contemporary efforts to conceive of global governance or a global normative order, specifically as... Continue reading

Every year the University of Chicago looks to fill its Core teaching staff, its "Society of Fellows." My sense is that they fill these posts in-house with graduate students who can't get tenure-track gigs. But, just in case they need a body or two, they advertise nationally. They request that... Continue reading

Here is a paper proposal I submitted to an upcoming conference, "Mimesis Now," at the University of Rochester. The link to the conference: http://rochester.edu/college/mimesis/ My proposal: What is the proper theoretical articulation of the relations among self-formation, autonomy and mimesis? If, with Plato, mimesis is “to speak or act in... Continue reading

My book has hit the streets! If you read it, let me know what you think! Thanks! http://www.amazon.com/Mimesis-Reason-Habermass-Political-Philosophy/dp/1438437390/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pd_C?ie=UTF8&coliid=I2KUMO21QXU5M4&colid=LS9353WV7XAL and, http://www.sunypress.edu/p-5226-mimesis-and-reason.aspx Continue reading

forthcoming in Choice Marder’s contribution to postmetaphysical thinking offers a set of studies of Carl Schmitt’s ontology written for initiates fluent in the Schmittian vocabulary and orientation. Along the way it also tackles a host of issues in contemporary Continental philosophy. On Marder’s reading, Schmitt properly understood is no statist,... Continue reading