Ron Alexander Memorial Lectures in Musicology: David Wilson, Harvey Mudd College

Title: "Sound, Light, Nation: Technological Spectacle and Communities of Feeling in Contemporary Taiwan"

Abstract: This talk grows out of my current work on the way that individual and state actors mobilize sound and visual media to craft contemporary visions of Taiwanese identity. I focus on Taiwan’s 2022 National Day sound-and-lights show (SLS) as my primary case study. I also draw on other examples of recent sound-and-lights displays devoted to Taiwan’s national identity, including Taiwan’s pavilion at World Expo 2025 in Osaka, and other recent National Day SLS’s in Taiwan. Drawing on close readings and interviews with audience members, I suggest that the bespoke musical soundtracks created for these events are key to the success of Taiwan’s National Day SLS’s, whose directors leverage the “stickiness” of music (Abbate 2004) to craft emotional connections between audiences and an emergent Taiwanese national identity. I also show how increasingly popular multimedia technologies facilitate new kinds of placemaking and new means of shaping the national imaginary. Specifically, I suggest that the National Day SLS blends Taiwan’s world-leading technological prowess with local musical and cinematic traditions to forge new communities of shared feeling centered around Taiwanese national identity.

David Wilson is a scholar of contemporary Taiwanese and Chinese musical media based at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, CA. His current book project, Music, Media, and Emotional Pedagogies of Citizenship in Modern Taiwan and China illuminates the central role of music in the construction of national identity by examining the entangled media histories of Taiwan and China. David received his PhD in ethnomusicology from the University of Chicago and his DMA in vocal arts from the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music, where he was named outstanding graduate of 2016. He has previously taught a variety of applied and academic music subjects at institutions including Stanford University, New York University, the Joint Music Program of the Claremont Colleges, Middlebury College, and the School for the Art Institute of Chicago.

Admission Information

• Free admission