Before the Bricolage... and Beyond: What DJs Know That Academics Don't

We joke that everyone's a DJ these days—in Brooklyn at least. And sometimes we talk about it like it's easy: just selecting songs, right? For some people, that's pretty much where it starts and ends. But for others, it really is a lifestyle that comes from a longstanding tradition with values, rites of passage, and countless hours dedicated to the craft. So for these DJs who treat music selection as sacred, what exactly are they bringing to the experience that the rest of us can't see?

This session explores DJing as a unique way of understanding and interacting with the world. We'll look at how the technical skills of mixing, beatmatching, scratching, crossfading—aren't just party tricks, but represent a distinctive approach to knowledge, creativity, and cultural expression. DJing sits at the heart of Hip Hop culture, and understanding it reveals something profound about how we learn, what we value, and who gets to decide what counts as expertise.

Here's where it gets interesting: there's this academic concept called "bricolage"—basically the art of creative tinkering and making something new from what you have. Educational theorist Joe Kincheloe loved this idea for thinking about research and learning. But when you look at what Hip Hop DJs have been doing since the 1970s, you realize they've been living and breathing this concept all along—and taking it much further. Where the bricolage framework ends, the DJ is just getting started, transforming both ideas and sounds into something entirely new.

The Evening: Dr. Hutchinson and DJ Springer will guide us through these ideas in real time, moving between lecture, conversation, and live sound demonstrations. Then we'll transition into a music-filled night of hanging out in the lighthouse, enjoying the tunes, the bar, and great company.

No DJ experience necessary, just curiosity about creativity, culture, and the knowledge systems we don't always recognize in traditional academic spaces.