Michael Szekely

Michael Szekely is an Associate Professor - Instructional at Temple University's College of Liberal Arts, with expertise in aesthetics, philosophy of music and improvisation, existentialism, and poststructuralist theory.

• PhD holder with extensive teaching in Liberal Studies and Intellectual Heritage programs
• Expertise spans critical theory, surrealist aesthetics, and music's philosophical dimensions
• Active researcher with publications in journals like Jazz Perspectives and Contemporary Aesthetics
• Practicing musician in multiple experimental ensembles including Unseen Rain and The Alternate View
• Trained jazz drummer under Jackie McLean and studied with Milford Graves

His scholarly work intersects Deleuze and Guattari's philosophy with music video subversion, as seen in his Rhizomes publication "Music of a Witch's Line: Deleuze and Guattari, and Music Video Shreds" (2018). Current research explores musical ontology through poststructuralist lenses, with forthcoming work on event theory (2024).

As a performer, he engages in collective improvisation across genres from psychedelic folk rock to electronics and voice projects, while maintaining academic rigor in analyzing Frankfurt School critical theory and Barthes' semiology in musical contexts.