The Jackman Humanities Institute (JHI) is home to cross-discipline research groups who run symposiums and lectures that are opened to the public. Martin Stoke’s keynote at this event caught my eye, and I had a chance this past Friday and Saturday to meet some new and familiar faces in the ethno department at Faculty of Music. Ken McLeod and Joshua Pilzer were gracious hosts and gathered together a small but dynamic group of scholars who have an overlapping interest in the music and sounds heard when a large number of people gather.

Martin Stokes discussed his preference for the use of the word ‘crowd’over the use of the word ‘public’, which like so many words have come to mean everything and ultimately nothing due to its frequent reference. He raised issues of epistemology (the language valence between the word ‘crowd’and ‘public; types of crowd;) and methodology (studying mass behaviour through the lense of the individual; as socio-political perspectives; as cultural phenomenon). While his talk was situated within a desire to generate relevant theories for the field of ethnomusicology, the issues he touched on are also that echoes those within the field of information studies, and echoes the issues that frequently bubble up whenever I try to explain to others the type of work I do.

I missed the presentations Friday afternoon, but below are some of my own notes as well as some really unexpected thoughts that related the conference theme back to my own research at the moment. Read on about Chindon’ya troops in Osaka, concert riots at the turn of the 20th century, and some thoughts offered on Beatlemania.