WTJU 91.1 FM

Tune into “Ye Olde Tuesday Afternoon Rocke Show,” September 16, 3 – 4 p.m. when WTJU Rock DJ and UVA professor of History and African American Studies, Andrew Kahrl, interviews libarary worker, writer, and researcher, Jacqui Sahagian, about her dissertation on Detroit’s Cass Corridor and the rise and fall of bohemian subcultures in post-industrial cities.

Jacqui Sahagian splits her time between Charlottesville, VA and metro-Detroit. Her dissertation “Building Bohemia in Detroit’s Cass Corridor, 1964-2017” explores the history of the neighborhood that produced Detroit’s most influential rock and roll. 

Telling the story of artists and activists, anarchists and poets, hippies and punks in relationship with their community, Sahagian argues that a focus on grassroots actors allows us to see beyond the narratives of decline that frequently color accounts of late twentieth century urban and political history. In newspapers, zines, music, and community spaces, bohemians romanticized Detroit as a place they could be their authentic selves, created sites to explore radical possibilities for different ways of living, and shaped the social movements of today.

By the early twenty-first century, capitalists took advantage of Detroit’s bankruptcy to gain swaths of land in the Corridor, which they razed to build a publicly funded sports arena. Local artists and activists continued their resistance, fighting the decisions that destroyed their neighborhood, as business, municipal, and state leaders remade Detroit into a postindustrial city.

Tags: Andrew Kahrl, Bohemians, Cass Corridor, Cultural History, Detroit, Jacqui Sahagian, Music History, Subcultures, wtju interview, WTJU Rock