SEMSS 2007 Keynote speaker

Josh Kun

Associate Professor

Annenberg School of Communication, USC

“The World Begins Here: Listening to Tijuana.”

About Josh Kun

He holds a PhD in Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley. A former Arts Writers Fellow with The Sundance Institute, he is the author of Audiotopia: Music, Race, and America (UC Press) which won a 2006 American Book Award.  His articles on popular music, the pop cultures of the US-Mexico border, and the music of Los Angeles have appeared in numerous scholarly journals and anthologies.  As a critic and journalist, he is a regular contributor to The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Magazine, and Tu Ciudad Los Angeles.  From 1998-2006, he wrote "Frequencies," a bi-weekly music column published in the San Francisco Bay Guardian and Boston Phoenix.  His writing has also appeared in LA Weekly, The Believer, Guilt & Pleasure, Village Voice, SPIN, Mother Jones, Rolling Stone, and in Mexico's La Jornada and Proceso.  He has written the liner notes to CDs by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, Maldita Vecindad, and Sammy Davis Jr.  In 2005, he was a regular critic on “The Movie Show With John Ridley” on American Movie Classics, and he has also appeared as a culture critic on ABC, The Disney Channel, UPN, Fox Latin America, BBC Radio, and National Public Radio.  From 1999-2000, he hosted “The Red Zone,” Southern California's first commercial Latin Rock radio program, on 107.1 FM and in 2002 was the show's host on MTV-español.  From 2003-2005, he hosted and associate produced “Rokamole,” a weekly Latin alternative music video show on KJLA-LATV.  He has also worked as a consultant and curator with The Los Angeles Public Library, Walt Disney Concert Hall, and the Santa Monica Museum of Art. Most recently, he co-founded Reboot Stereophonic, a non-profit record label dedicated to excavating lost treasures of Jewish-American music, and co-launched the audioblog, hippocampusmusic.  He is currently writing a book about Tijuana, Mexico.