© 2025 Michigan State University Board of Trustees
Public Media from Michigan State University
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Episode 5: Worldbuilding and Techno

Host Julian Chambliss explores the deep connections between techno music and Afrofuturist worldbuilding, focusing particularly on the legacy of Detroit’s Underground Resistance (UR). Techno is framed not only as music but as a medium of resistance, imagination, and cultural storytelling.

Host: Julian Chambliss. Featured Voices: Ingrid Lafleur, Tobias c. van Veen, Mike Banks, AduQadim Haqq.

Presented by WKAR Public Media in partnership with MSU Museum at Michigan State University.
Supported in part by MSU Federal Credit Union.

Includes:
Deborah Ray, “Sun Ra,” Detroit Public Television’s American Black Journal, 1981.

Juan Atkins - Techno City, 2010.

Julian C. Chambliss and Tobias C Van Veen, “Interview of Afrofuturist Sound Scholar Tobias C. Van Veen,” Michigan State University Library, G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection: Voices of the Black Imaginary, June 2021.

Julian C. Chambliss, “Interview of Erik Steinskog of the University of Copenhagen,” Michigan State University Library, G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection: Voices of the Black Imaginary, October 24, 2020.

Julian C. Chambliss is host, writer and creator of the podcast RISE: Detroit’s Machine Music. Chambliss is also a professor of English and Val Berryman Curator of History at Michigan State University. His research examines race, space, and community through Popular Culture, Black Digital Humanities, and Critical Afrofuturism frameworks.