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Benjamin Barson

@benjaminbarson.bsky.social
76 followers 79 following 12 posts

Historian, baritone saxophonist, (ethno-)musicologist working at the intersection of jazz, community organizing, and an ecological society.

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Andrew J. Eisenberg @anthroposound.bsky.social · 16/11/2024
A privilege and a pleasure to celebrate the release of my book at AMS with fellow Wesleyan U Press authors Shayna Silverstein and Ben Barson.
Three authors posing with their books
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Wesleyan University Press @weslpress.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
Meet Benjamin Barson, author of Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies and the Jazz Commons! To purchase his latest work, go to weslpress.org! #benjaminbarson #brassrootsdemocracy
Benjamin Barson holding his book Brassroots Democracy
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Wesleyan University Press @weslpress.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
Read the Brook Center's full statement here: fhttps://brookcenter.gc.cuny.edu/2025/12/02/2025-barry-and-claire-brook-award-announcement/ #brassrootsdemocracy #bookaward #brookscenter
brookcenter.gc.cuny.edu
2025 Barry and Claire Brook Award Announcement | The Brook Center
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Wesleyan University Press @weslpress.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
We would like to extend a huge congratulations to Benjamin Barson for winning The Brook Center Book Award for Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies and the Jazz Commons! 🏅📖 #brookcenter #bookawards #brassrootsdemocracy
The cover of Brassroots Democracy by Benjamin Barson floats over a blue wallpaper of the Brooks Center's logo. Below the book is a plaque that reads "2025 Barry and Claire Brook Book Award Winner"
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Wesleyan University Press @weslpress.bsky.social · 27/12/2025
Andrew Snyder reviewed Benjamin Barson's Brassroots Democracy in the Journal of Festive Studies! Check it out: journals.h-net.org/jfs/article/... Also, use code QGIFT25 now until January 31, 2026 to get 40% off on all Wesleyan University Press books! #benjaminbarson #brassrootsdemocracy
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Lewis R. Gordon @lewgord.bsky.social · 22/02/2026
The 2026 Caribbean Philosophical Association Awardees: Judith Butler, Charles W. Mills (Posthumous), Mouhamadou El Hady Ba, Brian Kwoba (for Hubert Harrison), and Benjamin Barson (for Brassroots Democracy). caribbeanphilosophy.org/frantz-fanon caribbeanphilosophy.org/nicolas-guil...
caribbeanphilosophy.org
Frantz Fanon Award — The Caribbean Philosophical Association
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Caribbean Philosophical Association @caribphil.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
Congratulations to Benjamin Barson! His book, Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies and the Jazz Commons, is the winner of the Nicolás Cristóbal Guillén Batista Outstanding Book Award! Read more: caribbeanphilosophy.org/nicolas-guil...
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Wesleyan University Press @weslpress.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Start getting excited for our upcoming Fall 2026 releases, featuring brand-new releases, revised editions, and our highly anticipated Ibis Edition launch! All books are available to pre-order or research further at weslpress.org. #newbooks #fall2026 #ibiseditions #forthcoming
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Benjamin Barson @benjaminbarson.bsky.social · 15/03/2026
A little late here but thanks Marcus! Brass solidarity is great, a confirmation of all that is good with the movement.
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Association of University Presses @aupresses.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
#TeamUP and #ReadUP in the arts, performing arts & media studies with works by @uchicagopress.bsky.social, @n-w-f.bsky.social, @cmupress.bsky.social, @nupress.bsky.social & more in the #UPWeek Gallery bit.ly/3WTl7XD
#TeamUP in the Arts, Performing Arts, and Media Studies, University Press Week, featuring 3 book jackets: 
-Animal Crossing, New Horizons: Can a Game Take Care of Us? 
-Time Well Spent: An American Architect in Europe, 1893
-We Are Civic Media
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MAAH Stone Book Award @maahstonebookaward.bsky.social · 13/09/2025
Ben Barson's 'Brassroots Democracy' is one of our two $10K 2025 Finalists! Dig it: a book that recasts the birth of jazz drawing on the narratives of New Orleans musicians to reveal the role that jazz & jazz musicians played in mobilizing people during Reconstruction & beyond! bit.ly/2025-maah-st...
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Wesleyan University Press @weslpress.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
We are proud to celebrate Benjamin Barson and his book Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies and the Jazz Commons for being chosen as a Finalist for the MAAH Stone Book Award! #maahmuseum #brassrootsdemocracy #musichistory
A photo of a blonde, smiling man, with a green background, is overlaid with the following white text: "MAAH Stone Book Award. Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies and the Jazz Commons by Benjamin Barson. Finalist!"
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Benjamin Barson @benjaminbarson.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
Thank you! Welcome and needed…
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Pilsen Community Books @pilsencommbooks.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
A festive window display for the weekend 🎉
Alternating signs in the window that say “CHINGA LA MIGRA” and “ICE OUT OF CHICAGO”
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J.T. Roane @jtroane.bsky.social · 07/09/2025
Nobody wants no damn Gavin Newsome. We must resist the undemocratic imposition of these boring, trite liberals and court a new political axis centered on internationalist solidarity and eco socialism.
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Benjamin Barson @benjaminbarson.bsky.social · 31/08/2025
Es la misma cosa
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MAAH Stone Book Award @maahstonebookaward.bsky.social · 25/08/2025
3/12 MSBA 2025 ShortList: Benjamin Barson's 'Brassroots Democracy' recasts the birth of jazz, unearthing vibrant narratives of New Orleans musicians to reveal how early jazz was inextricably tied to the mass mobilization of freedpeople during Reconstruction and the decades that followed.
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Wesleyan University Press @weslpress.bsky.social · 28/08/2025
Congratulations to Benjamin Barson, whose book Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies and the Jazz Commons has been selected for the MAAH Stone Book Award Shortlist! Visit weslpress.org to order a copy!
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Benjamin Barson @benjaminbarson.bsky.social · 23/08/2025
I just learned that the @maahstonebookaward.bsky.social shortlisted "Brassroots Democracy" for the Stone Book Award, in the company of so many brilliant and vital books. Winners will be announced in October. So grateful to the committee for reading this love letter to jazz and its social vision.
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University of Illinois Press @illinoispress.bsky.social · 20/08/2025
In Jazz and Culture Vol. 8, No. 1, @benjaminbarson.bsky.social explores the historical and theoretical intersections between marronage and jazz through a critical analysis of archival records, musical practices, and Black ecological practice. scholarlypublishingcollective.org/uip/jac/arti...
Cover of Jazz & Culture, Volume 8, Number 1, Spring/Summer 2025
Closeup image of a saxophone on a black background.
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University of Illinois Press @illinoispress.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
🎷Jazz and Culture Vol. 8, No. 1, is here! Feat. work by @paulausterlitz.bsky.social, Jhensen Ortiz, @benjaminbarson.bsky.social, Elizabeth Frickey, Scott Gray Douglass, El Williams III, plus a review of "Brassroots Democracy" @weslpress.bsky.social! scholarlypublishingcollective.org/uip/jac/issu...
Cover of Jazz & Culture, Volume 8, Number 1, Spring/Summer 2025
Closeup image of a saxophone on a black background. 
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Benjamin Barson @benjaminbarson.bsky.social · 07/07/2025
This was (finally) some good NYT reporting on this.
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MAAH Stone Book Award @maahstonebookaward.bsky.social · 05/06/2025
13/141 2025 Official Submission #MAAHStoneAtoZ
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Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
Interesting. New contracting memorandum from Secy of Defense says military contracts shld stop including language that bars contractors from running segregated facilities.
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Naomi Klein @naomiaklein.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
The corporate coup is global. Trump's mad tariffs do not mark the end of neoliberalism or free trade or whatever you want to call it. They mark the end game of what we have been fighting for decades: corporate rule. They do not believe in the public. They believe in their wealth.
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Pilsen Community Books @pilsencommbooks.bsky.social · 17/11/2024
Ben Barson, eli namay, Lyn Rye, Adam Shead, and Fred Jackson celebrate BRASSROOTS DEMOCRACY with a discussion on music, improvisation and community organizing 🎶
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Pilsen Community Books @pilsencommbooks.bsky.social · 15/11/2024
Sunday! Join Barson, eli, namay, Lyn Rye, Adam Shead, and Fred Jackson for for an event in celebration of Barson's Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies and the Jazz Commons! pilsencommunitybooks.com/events/43336
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Nous. @nousfnd.bsky.social · 14/01/2025
Join us in celebrating Benjamin Barson's new book, Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies and the Jazz Commons at the BK House. The evening will blend music and conversation exploring the legacies of Haitian music, language, and politics in New Orleans with Creole music by Leyla McCalla and Sunpie.
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Wesleyan University Press @weslpress.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
Join us tomorrow at 7pm for music and conversation exploring the legacies of Haitian music, language, and politics in New Orleans! @benjaminbarson.bsky.social joined by #LeylaMcCall, and @brucesunpiebarnes.bsky.social & the Louisiana Sunspots. #TulaneLiberalArts #BKHouseNOLA @nousfnd.bsky.social
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History Cafe ☕ Ottoman Heritage @ottomanhistory.bsky.social · 05/01/2025
■ Chart Showing the Attendance and Absence Records of Students at an Ottoman Elementary School in Baalbek (Lebanon), 1894 #history #baalbek #lebanon #education
Chart Showing the Attendance and Absence Records of Students at an Ottoman Elementary School in Baalbek.
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Benjamin Barson @benjaminbarson.bsky.social · 05/01/2025
Full link here: jjs.libraries.rutgers.edu/index.php/jj...
jjs.libraries.rutgers.edu
View of Book Review | Journal of Jazz Studies
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Benjamin Barson @benjaminbarson.bsky.social · 05/01/2025
Just in! -- review of Brassroots Democracy in the Journal of Jazz Studies by E Frickey. "This sprawling and pioneering text is perhaps only the beginning of not just a new outlook on jazz scholarship but an invigorated musicology that engages with its site of research literally from the ground up."
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est. 1997 @molenaide.bsky.social · 02/01/2025
happy Haitian Independence Day !
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Benjamin Barson @benjaminbarson.bsky.social · 20/12/2024
Honored to have Brassroots Democracy named in @popmatters.bsky.social “Best Books of 2024”!
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Benjamin Barson @benjaminbarson.bsky.social · 18/12/2024
Thanks @vickmickunas.bsky.social for the in-depth interview about Brassroots Democracy on Book Nook. You can check out the full interview here:
wyso.org
Book Nook: 'Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies and the Jazz Commons' by Benjamin Barson
Studying the connections between jazz and democracy.
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PopMatters @popmatters.com · 09/12/2024
Jazz’s Historical Agenda as Protest Music in the Stellar Brassroots Democracy Benjamin Barson's excellent 'Brassroots Democracy' details the beautiful and bleak ways that #jazz created the soundtrack of an emancipatory movement that lasts to this day.
tinyurl.com
Jazz’s Agenda as Protest Music in 'Brassroots Democracy'
The excellent 'Brassroots Democracy' details the beautiful and bleak ways that jazz music created the soundtrack of an emancipatory movement that lasts to this day.
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vijay iyer @vijayiyer.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
Coming soon: The Prison Notebooks by Luigi Mangione
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Benjamin Barson @benjaminbarson.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
Thank you @popmatters.bsky.social for calling my book Brassroots Democracy "Stellar." "9/10."(!) "Brassroots Democracy inspires hope about what is possible under the bleakest conditions." So cool to be featured in this outlet. Check out the full review here:
popmatters.com
Jazz’s Agenda as Protest Music in 'Brassroots Democracy'
The excellent 'Brassroots Democracy' details the beautiful and bleak ways that jazz music created the soundtrack of an emancipatory movement that lasts to this day.
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Anthropology and Social Change @anthciis.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
New edition, soon! “Öcalan’s works make many intellectuals uncomfortable because they represent a form of thought which is not only inextricable from action, but which directly grapples with the knowledge that it is.” —David Graeber author of Debt: The First 5,000 Years pmpress.org/index.php?l=...
pmpress.org
Capitalism: The Age of Unmasked Gods and Naked Kings (Manifesto of the Democratic Civilization, Volume II), Second Edition
The second volume of Öcalan’s five-volume work making the convincing argument that capitalism is not a product of the last four hundred years but a continuation of classical civilization.
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Benjamin Barson @benjaminbarson.bsky.social · 23/11/2024
You know I appreciate this!!!
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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 23/11/2024
Writing tip #2: All of my books have soundtracks. I always start with music that will somehow help me to understand the people I am studying. The track for *Outlaws of the Atlantic* was the music of the great London-based dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, what he called "Jamaican rebel music."
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Wesleyan University Press @weslpress.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Check out @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social's conversation with WUP author Benjamin Barson on his latest book "Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies and the Jazz Commons." newbooksnetwork.com/brassroots-d... #BenjaminBarson #Jazz #CivilRights #MusicHistory
newbooksnetwork.com
Benjamin Barson, "Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies and the Jazz Commons" (Wesleyan UP, 2024) - New Books Network
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Benjamin Barson @benjaminbarson.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
Pilsen Community Books is such an amazing space! Thank you for hosting and all that you do
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