Dyslexic Ways of Thinking: A Reflexive Study of Chopi Timbila Xylophone Musicking in Mozambique

In JOURNAL OF AUDIOVISUAL ETHNOMUSICOLOGY

Vol. 2, Spring 2024

ROBBIE CAMPBELL / SOAS, University of London

interview by WILLIAM CHENG / Dartmouth College

Journal Editor’s Introduction

Robbie Campbell, a Ph.D. graduate from SOAS, University of London, and William Cheng, Chair and Professor of Music at Dartmouth College, discuss Campbell’s web-based examination of musical practice. Campbell’s doctoral thesis draws provocative connections across dyslexia, embodied knowledge, and Chopi timbila xylophone music from Mozambique. Cheng, the author of Loving Music Till It Hurts (Oxford University Press, 2019) and Just Vibrations: The Purpose of Sounding Good (University of Michigan Press, 2016), brings his extensive interdisciplinary research and commitment to social justice issues to provide a critically informed, caring perspective on Campbell’s work.

Throughout the interview, Campbell and Cheng weigh the challenges and rewards of pursuing unconventional research methodologies and the need for academia to embrace neurodiversity and alternative epistemologies. They discuss the transformative potential of multimedia in creating more accessible forms of scholarship (a central aim for this journal) and the productive resonances between dyslexia and engaging with complex musical traditions.

Cheng’s focus on the theoretical and methodological aspects of Campbell’s thesis—particularly the use of multimedia to embrace neurodiversity—offers broader implications for inclusive scholarship and the future of academic knowledge production. This interview can help us consider the intersection of music, disability studies, and unconventional scholarly approaches, and it stresses the importance of cultivating more accessible and equitable spaces for impactful scholarly engagement.

In the spirit of Campbell’s advocacy of non-linear scholarship, feel free to use these links to jump around the interview, which I have organized by the following subtitles:

From London to Dyslexia and Timbila Music

Reframing Dyslexia: Intuition, Embodiment, and Celebration

Complementary Cognition: Moving Beyond the Exceptional

Navigating Academia: Alternative Approaches to Dyslexic Thesis Writing

Future Directions and Reflections

— Benjamin J. Harbert, Co-Editor in Chief