madison moore is the John Atwater and Diana Nelson Assistant Professor of the Arts in the Department of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University. madison holds a PhD in American Studies from Yale and is broadly invested in the aesthetic, sonic and spatial strategies queer and trans people of color use to both survive and thrive in the five alarm fire of everyday life. His first book Fabulous: The Rise of the Beautiful Eccentric (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018), offers a cultural analysis of fabulousness as a practice of resistance. As a DJ, madison has performed internationally at a broad range of art institutions and nightclubs, including The Kitchen, The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, SFMOMA, the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, the Perth Festival, Performance Space Sydney and beyond. In February 2023, he guest co-edited a special issue of the arts journal e-flux on BLACK RAVE with McKenzie Wark. Currently, he is currently working on a new book, NIGHT FEVER, focused on queer nightlife as a method of living.

Victor Szabo is Elliott Associate Professor of Music at Hampden-Sydney College. His current musicological research explores the psychedelic and queer artistry of DJing in the contemporary US rave underground. Previously, Szabo wrote a book on the countercultural history and aesthetics of ambient music titled Turn On, Tune In, Drift Off: Ambient Music’s Psychedelic Past (Oxford University Press, 2023), and he has also published writings in the Journal of the American Musicological Society, Journal of the Society for American Music, Twentieth-Century Music, and Journal of Popular Music Studies. In keeping with his work as a musicologist, his DJing as Vicky Vicky Vicky tethers far-flung and fresh future beats to dance music’s deeply human history. His penchant for hypnotic house, discombobulating dissonance, sassy swish, and soulful sincerity can be heard in Richmond’s club and DIY dance music scene, as well as his biweekly show Otherworlds on WRIR-FM Richmond.