Seeking the live

Experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic as a postgraduate music student

Authors

  • Alice Rose University of Oxford

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/prbt.19268%20

Keywords:

postgraduate research, fieldwork, COVID-19, digital technology

Abstract

Onaji jikan, onaji kukan. Same time, same place. These are the words I wrote down in an interview this summer—ironically a Zoom interview that took place both at 9 am in Oxford and 5 pm in Osaka. Needless to say, this was not the fieldwork I planned when I began my PhD in 2018, although in some ways it feels fitting for a thesis on digital technologies and the ‘live’. Yet today I remain, like many of my peers, so far behind, so ‘late’, that catching up seems almost impossible. In this article, I reflect on the importance of shared time and place, not only in Japanese ‘live culture’, but also in my experience of the pandemic as a postgraduate student.

Author Biography

  • Alice Rose, University of Oxford

    Alice Rose is a DPhil candidate in Music at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on the technological and digital mediation of Japanese idol culture and the relationship between online fandom and live culture.

References

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Straits Times, The. 2020. ‘Japan’s Live Music Clubs Emerge as New Coronavirus Transmission Sites’. Online at https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/japans-live-music-clubs-emerge-as-new-coronavirus-transmission-sites (accessed 28 January 2021).

Strathern, M. 2000. Audit Cultures: Anthropological Studies in Accountability, Ethics, and the Academy. London: Routledge.

Published

2021-08-28

How to Cite

Rose, A. (2021). Seeking the live: Experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic as a postgraduate music student. Perfect Beat, 21(1), 76–80. https://doi.org/10.1558/prbt.19268