Sounds of Black Switzerland

“Interspersing interstitial events of detailed listening with theoretical formulations derived from that listening, Jessie Cox teaches us about the specificities and varieties of Black life in Switzerland. He notes the fateful and fatal commonalities, particularly those that concern not just the problematic of identity but also the various forms of resistant survival that are given as refusals to identity. An extraordinary provocation and inspiration, Sounds of Black Switzerland prompts ecstatic responses and overwhelming questions.” - Fred Moten, author of Black and Blur

“Jessie Cox crucially notes the importance of musical discourses, interdisciplinary modes of knowledge production, and storytelling for the communal ontologies of Black life in diaspora in Switzerland and beyond. He takes aspects habitually overlooked by mainstream knowledges and transforms them into Black diasporic critical instruments. Redrawing the critical maps of the relationship between contemporary Black Switzerland and sonic performance, this lucidly argued, theoretically sophisticated, and timely book will make an immediate contribution to Black diaspora studies, European studies, sound studies, and cultural studies.” - Alexander Ghedi Weheliye, author of Feenin: R&B Music and the Materiality of BlackFem Voices and Technology

"The book’s strength lies in Cox’s ability to synthesise ideas from across the humanities and social sciences to posit an articulation of Blackness, specifically Swiss Blackness, that exists in' excess of what we might know or think life to be.' . . . This book will appeal to those interested in philosophical meditations on the relationship between sound, race, citizenship, and border thinking." - Rose Campion, Ethnic and Racial Studies

"[B]eyond advocating for recognition of Black music makers within the nation’s geospatial borders, in this wonder-full book, Cox’s project is more ontological, pointedly political, and broadly metaphysical. Ultimately, this is a book about listening; and specifically listening to the excess affordances of an inaudible Blackness ... within the Swiss context." - Anthony Kwame Harrison, Popular Music History