Global Digital Sound Studies: Circulating Culture and Power

Global Digital Sound Studies: Circulating Culture and Power

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Talk Description 

From NPR’s oft-viral Tiny Desk concert series to Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s long-running podcast Mann Ki Baat (Speaking from the Heart), the many ways in which music and sound circulate online play a powerful role in mediating digital experiences on a global scale. Nevertheless, the call remains in the nascent field of digital sound studies to expand beyond the text-centric focus of humanistic communication scholarship in order to more fully acknowledge the deeply sonic experience of being online. This event will answer this call by bringing together in conversation scholars from UPenn and Lehigh University, whose work addresses many of the core questions that foreground the study of communication and digital sound: from the economy and industry of sound; sound as it relates to space, place, and identity; to sound as a tool for political power. Moreover, our discussion will seek to challenge Anglo and Global North-centric perspectives on how we hear the digital that continue to predominate the field of media studies.

This event will be a moderated conversation, with each contributor sharing insights from their research before opening up for discussion with the audience, and we encourage attendees to come prepared to contribute their own insights and questions on these topics. The discussion will be moderated by Dr. Lucy March.

About Dr. Jasmine A Henry

Dr. Jasmine A. Henry (she/her) is a versatile and engaging audio engineer and musicologist. As a live sound engineer, she has entertained international audiences through her work on critically acclaimed productions such as the Blue Man Group and HBO’s The Newsroom. She holds bachelor and master’s degrees in sound engineering and music business, respectively, from William Paterson University. In May 2022, she completed a PhD in musicology at Rutgers University with the defense of her dissertation entitled, “Jersey Club: Race, Place and Black Independent Music-Making in Newark, New Jersey.” Henry researches, writes, and lectures about contemporary popular music subjects in the context of racial, cultural, and socioeconomic issues. You may find her recently published and forthcoming publications in the Popular Culture Studies Journal, Journal of Pan African Studies, and Journal of the Society for American Music. As an educator, she designs and teaches music business, music technology, and music history courses at several higher education institutions including The New School, Rutgers University, Felician University, and others. Henry currently serves as the artistic director and coordinator of the Newark School of the Arts Media Lab where she regularly works in collaboration with the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), United Nations, and Prudential Center to design and host multimedia performances.

About Professor Aswin Punathambekar

Aswin Punathambekar studies media and cultural change in postcolonial and diasporic contexts, with a focus on media industries and institutions, formations of audiences and publics, and cultural identity and politics. He takes cultural and historical approaches to studying global media and communication with a particular focus on South Asia and the South Asian diaspora in the U.S. and the U.K.

Aswin Punathambekar is a Professor of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, and Director of the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC). Previously he taught at the University of Michigan, the University of Virginia, and held a British Academy Global Professorship (2020-2024, affiliated with Loughborough University in the U.K.).

About Professor John Vilanova

John Vilanova is an assistant professor of Journalism & Communication and Africana Studies at Lehigh University. He critiques manifestations of identity-based injustice and power in media industries, with a particular focus on anti-Blacknesses in the popular music industry. He has recent publications in Critical Studies in Media Communication, the European Journal of Cultural Studies, and the International Journal of Cultural Studies. He is a former music journalist with bylines at Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, and others, and earned his Ph. D at the Annenberg School for Communication in 2019.