By Daniela Trajtman //
Professor Sabeen Ahmed teaches philosophy at Swarthmore College, where she writes and thinks about continental philosophy and postcolonial theory. Her work reflects a deep curiosity about how ideas shape the ways we live, create, and understand one another. Thoughtful and generous in conversation, Professor Ahmed brings a reflective and imaginative voice to philosophy both within and beyond the classroom. On a quiet afternoon, I sat down with Professor Ahmed to talk about music: the artists who have shaped her over the years, the sounds that accompany her thinking, and the songs that echo throughout her life.
The below transcript was edited and condensed for clarity.
Daniela Trajtman: So the first question I wanted to ask was to kind of bring you back to your college years. Do you have any specific songs or artists that really resonate with your college years, or anything that reminds you of that time?
Sabeen Ahmed: Oh my God, of course. This is a cruel question because now everyone’s going to know how old I am. When I was an undergrad, that was a really big moment for indie folk and indie rock. I went to the University of Virginia, so I was in the mountains in Appalachia, and indie was very big where we were. My undergrad was full of Fleet Foxes, The Avett Brothers, a little bit of blues folk—who else was in there? Fleet Foxes, Avett Brothers, Beirut. I listened to a lot.
It was that soft, introspective sound, lyrics and guitars, sometimes a steel pedal. That was very much the vibe when I was an undergrad. Obama was president, everybody was pretty optimistic, and it was a pretty introspective time. Music wasn’t very angry back then. I was definitely an introspective philosophy undergrad, so I really loved that stuff. But there was also a moment when neo-hip hop was becoming cool. Childish Gambino had just started when I was finishing up undergrad, and that new wave of hip hop and rap was coming in. It was a nice transition because I had just moved to D.C. after that, and D.C. was a great place to be listening to that. D.C. was the right place to be.
DT: Have you felt like your music taste has changed a lot since then? Or do you still listen to the same artists, or would you say it’s grown?
SA: It’s really expanded. I lived in Nashville, Tennessee, for six years, and my closest friend there, who I still talk to all the time, is a big audiophile and was a DJ and a manager at a record store. I spent a lot of my time in Nashville going to live shows and discovering these very strange genres like chamber pop and electronic ambient. I got really into synth pop and dream pop as a grad student, and I’ve started picking that stuff back up. It feels appropriate for the times—dreamy, surreal. It feels like surreal times.
DT: Dream pop is one of my favorite genres. On that note, do you see an intersection between your philosophical interests and the kind of music you listen to?
SA: I think that’s a good question. Since you were in my class, you know I’m attuned to the political valence of art in general, but music has always had a very unique place to play in terms of racial politics. I played piano and flute growing up, and I went to a very small high school where we didn’t have a concert band because we didn’t have enough students. So we had a jazz band. I played the jazz flute for a couple of years before realizing the flute’s not really conducive to a jazz band—and then I stopped.
But I’ve always been really drawn to jazz and blues, both because of their strong, vibrant histories and because they reappear in such new and interesting ways all the time. Rock music draws so heavily from blues and jazz. A lot of contemporary hip hop is digging back into its soul, R&B, and jazz roots. I love seeing artists, especially those from historically marginalized backgrounds, take up different musical techniques to make statements about history, politics, violence, and perseverance.
Lately, I’ve been very into Asian electronic producers. One is based in France and is of Vietnamese heritage; he plays around with the idea of chinoiserie: the European co-option of Chinese culture. He mixes hip hop beats with chinoiserie elements as a statement on Eurocentrism as an Asian man within that context. The other is a Hiroshima-based Japanese producer named Meitei, whose music is super minimalist, a little avant-garde, and deeply inspired by Japanese folklore and a kind of Japan that no longer exists. His music is haunting. There’s a hauntedness about it that I love. I love being challenged that way, to experience entire lives in sound.
DT: That sounds really cool. If you had to choose one album or artist to design a philosophy course around, who would it be?
SA: Oh my gosh, that’s crazy. David Bowie. I love David Bowie. He digs into my pop sensibilities. I grew up as a Pakistani with parents educated in a very colonial context, so I listened to a lot of Europop. Bowie is both nostalgic for me and transformative. It was only after listening to Bowie and watching his videos that I saw music as an art form. It would be so fun to design a course around Bowie: his influence, the ways he pioneered genre, and how he transformed what it means to be a performer, to be queer, and to be a pop artist.
DT: [laughing]: I think I could guess one of your answers to this next one. If you could host a dinner with three musicians, living or dead, who would you invite?
SA: Obviously, David Bowie. But then I feel like one of them has to be Freddie Mercury, though that feels so easy. Ooh, who else? I’d love for Kendrick Lamar to be there. I feel like he and Bowie would get along super well. There’s something about that that would work. And maybe Joanna Newsom. That would be an interesting dinner; they’re all very strange.
DT: That would be really cool. I’d want to watch that.
SA: Exactly. I’d just put them together and see what happens. Weird music would get made with all of them. Such different lives.
DT: Yeah, I feel like I’d just sit there and not say anything.
SA: I’m just here to observe.
DT: Changing the topic a bit, about your life right now, what song would you choose as a theme for your life at the moment?
SA: Ooh. I wouldn’t necessarily say this because of the lyrics, but because of the vibe. I’m gonna go with Julee Cruise’s “Into the Night.” I watched Twin Peaks for the first time this summer.
DT: Really? What did you think?
SA: Amazing. Incredible. It’s very clear that it’s influenced almost every major drama.
DT: Did you watch the movie after?
SA: I did. Loved the movie. Unbelievable. I got really into Julee Cruise. Her haunting, distorted vocals and the tragedy in her voice, along with that surreal distortion, feel so fitting for this moment. I find myself listening to her a lot these days.
DT: Super cool. And the last question I have for you, what’s a song or artist you secretly love that might surprise your students?
SA [laughing]: I feel like I’m so strange that few things would surprise my students. But I really loved all of the songs in K-Pop Demon Hunters. They were excellent. I get the hype. I’m not a fanatic, but I see it. The music, it’s all earworms. I’ve been listening to that a lot lately.
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