Dr Caspar Melville

I was born and raised in London, and started my career as a music journalist, writing for the independent black music press – Blues & Soul, Touch, Urb and Jazzid – and freelancing for other publications such as The Village Voice and The Sunday Telegraph.

I spent eight years living in San Francisco in the 1990s, during which time I worked as a columnist, DJ, radio presenter and club promoter, and helped start a short-lived jazz magazine, On The One. Back in London I worked as Media Editor and then Executive Editor at the online journal openDemocracy for five years. Before joining SOAS, in September 2013, I worked for eight years for the charity the Rationalist Association, where I was  the editor of New Humanist magazine and the charity’s chief executive. My first book Taking Offence (Seagull books/Index on Censorship) was published in 2009.

I have a BA in American Studies (Literature) from Sussex University and an MA and PhD in Media and Communications from Goldsmiths College, University of London. My thesis – London Underground The Multicultural Routes of London’s Dance Music Cultures – explored issues of race, space identity and belonging in the interracial clubs of London, 1965-1998.

Listen to Caspar discussing his research on SOAS Radio.

My main research interests include

• Afro-diasporic popular music: The production, consumption and circulation of “black” music (music of African origin), generic change, music in everyday life, dance and antiphony, The Black Atlantic, circum-Atlantic creative practice
• The history and cartography of genre: jazz, hip hop, Jungle, Grime
• The distinct artistic practices of the city, London in particular
• Ideologies of race and identity
• The history and future of cultural studies and critical theory
• Post-digital media - in particular issues of ownership, work and ideologies of utopia

A secondary area of interest involves the philosophical utility of reason, the scientific method, contemporary religion and non-religion, and free speech and offence. I recently authored a book about the history of dance music cultures in London, 1980-2000, called It's a London Thing: How Rare Groove, Acid House and Jungle Remapped the City (2019). The book is now available from Manchester University Press. 

I am also a researcher on Bass Culture, a 3-year AHRC-funded research project on the history and impact of Jamaican music (reggae and its many offshoots) in the UK. Research outputs will include a major exhibition, film and online resource. I will be contributing a monograph scheduled for publication in 2019.