The New York Review of Ideas » Profiles | June 2009
Professor of Punk
Vivien Goldman proves that punk doesn’t have to lose its edge to go academic.
By Frances Pollitzer
The depth of Marley’s words that day still strike Goldman as she recounts them for me, over tea, in her bright shared office at NYU. Flame-haired and full of smiles for the staff members who flock to her, one by one, for a hug and how are you, she is not a typical find in America’s box-ticking halls of academia. Above the sounds, seeping up through the floorboards, of students practising their various instruments, Goldman sighs: “Here they don’t know what the Punky Reggae Party is. Traditionally England and Europe are a lot more open and eclectic than America”. The two courses she teaches at NYU, one on punk the other on reggae, are intended to change that. And for good reason: “Where we are now is arguably comparable panic to the anarchy that was around when punk was born,” Goldman explains, “all this capitalism and living on the credit card has proved to be something of a let down.”
The Punk Professor—a moniker conveyed on her by BBC America – is teaching her students that it is admirable, nay, essential, to rebel. Embrace individuality and ‘do it yourself’, regardless of the paths others lay out for you. Just like she did, just like the punks and reggae artists she stood on the frontlines with did.
Jason King agrees that it is important to keep defining moments in musical history, like the Punky Reggae Party, alive: “Music that has the ability to raise consciousness is incredibly important. A lot of what might seem scary about the uncertain future of the music industry seems somewhat less scary when you contextualize it in terms of the turbulent changes that have occurred in the past. Having a grasp of the past gives you a much better sense of how to move forward into a better future.”
The day of our interview, I interrupt Goldman from working on two film scripts. (One an “urban thriller with very human emotions,” she hints, the other based on the life of ska legend Don Drummond, who met a controversial end in a Kingston prison after being convicted for murdering a local dancer). The enthusiasm with which she continues to add strings to her bow is both inspiring and impressive: journalist, musician, teacher, television producer, documentary-maker, author, film-maker, and so on. But escaping the expected and defying categorisation is what Goldman does best, and she dismisses my praise with an emblematically punk reflection: “I’ve not let age and being a woman cramp my style. Not having subscribed to those societal rules in the first place, they’re not going to inhibit me now.” ♦