Dr. Joseph Bryan Discusses "History in an Unfamiliar Key: Propagandhi, Punk Rock, and the Uses of History"

Read "History in an Unfamiliar Key: Propagandhi, Punk Rock, and the Uses of History" https://drive.google.com/file/d/16ACwMfe737HZ2p6XTEsb4Z9mcGmf7tNm/view?usp=sharing Joseph Bryan Biography from Montana State University: Brief Biography: My initial historical interests were in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century heterodox thought— forms of "atheism," "deism," and "materialism"—and the spaces where philosophy, science ("natural philosophy"), and "sociology" overlapped. In my MA thesis, I analyzed Baron d'Holbach's rhetorical strategies and his reliance on natural philosophy to construct a materialistic interpretation of mankind's physical origins and social development.

From there, I developed a larger interest in perceptions of the human body as the mediator of social experiences. My research builds from questions posed by theories of embodiment and examines the ways in which relationships between humans in society were perceived to be channeled or stymied by corporeal properties. My dissertation explored how eighteenth-century writers employed the language and theories of physiology and medicine to map new foundations for society, especially in the burgeoning field of political economy and the "debate over luxury." Contemporaries used a new "corporeal vocabulary," based largely on sensationalism and theories of the nervous system, to address the growth of commerce and consumption of material goods and point toward both the degenerative and optimistic aspects of both.

Since 2020, I've shifted gears to merge my academic historical interests with a lifetime of devotion to punk rock music. My new project asks when individuals listen to punk rock, what historical messages do they hear? Alongside that central question, I ask how punk lyrics appear when filtered through an historical lens. In what ways do punk musicians use history to sustain economic, environmental, political, racial, religious, social, and sexual critiques? How is the past given shape and meaning by punk lyrics? How visible, so to speak, are the historical elements? Essentially, what purpose does the past serve in punk music? Historical examination is not only central to how we define punk, and how punks define(d) themselves, but punk treatment of the past should be integrated into how we evaluate public consumption of history. They impart meaning to the past and challenge contemporary understandings of the past, present, and future. While punks do not create new knowledge, their music acts as an alternative historical epistemology that tracks alongside professional historians. They treat both the content of the past and the craft of History. I'm hoping to have a completed book manuscript on this topic by the summer of 2026: "Echoes of a Dreadful Past": Making Meaning of the Past through Punk Rock.