Conference Agenda

The Online Program of events for the SEM 2025 Annual Meeting appears below. This program is subject to change. The final program will be published in early October.

Use the search bar to search by name or title of paper/session. Note that this search bar does not search by keyword.

Click on the session name for a detailed view (with participant names and abstracts).

Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 26th Aug 2025, 07:06:31pm EDT

 
 
Session Overview
Location: M-302
Marquis Level 96
Date: Thursday, 23/Oct/2025
8:00am
-
10:00am
01H: Listening to Archives
Location: M-302
Presenter: Jonathan Lee Hollis
Presenter: Emma Wimberg
Presenter: Peter Verdin, Memorial University of Newfoundland
 

Listening to Armenian Baku: History and Memory in Digital Diaspora

Jonathan Lee Hollis

Independent Scholar



The Changing Function of a Choctaw Hymn: Closing Conference, Close of Worship, and Farewell

Emma Wimberg

University of North Texas



Schrödinger’s Tapes? – The Discos Smith Collection in the Ralph Rinzler Archive

Peter Verdin

Memorial University of Newfoundland,

10:45am
-
12:15pm
02H: Narrations of Black Life
Location: M-302
Presenter: Elizabeth Falade
Presenter: Jake Blount, Brown University
Presenter: Joe Z. Johnson, Indiana University, Bloomington
 

Fluid Frequencies: Alternative R&B as a site of new and renewed Black consciousness.

Elizabeth Falade

University of Groningen



In the Breath of the Dead: Remixing Black Uchronia in Spirituals, Work Songs, and Avant-Garde Metal

Jake Blount

Brown University,



Black Banjo Bodylands: Conjuring Ancestral Memory and Navigating the White Gaze

Joe Z. Johnson

Indiana University, Bloomington,

12:30pm
-
1:30pm
SIG for Music and Violence
Location: M-302
1:45pm
-
3:45pm
03H: Reflections on Sound and Movement in Ethnomusicology
Location: M-302
Presenter: Allan Zheng, University of California, Riverside
 

Reflections on Sound and Movement in Ethnomusicology

Chair(s): Allan Zheng (University of California, Riverside)

 

Presentations in the Session

 

N/A

Holly Tumblin
University of Florida

 

N/A

Matthew Rahaim
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

 

N/A

Shayna Silverstein
Northwestern University

 

N/A

Christina Sunardi
University of Washington

 

N/A

Corinna Campbell
Williams College

 

N/A

Allan Zheng
University of California, Riverside

4:00pm
-
5:30pm
04H: Digital Media in Iran
Location: M-302
Presenter: Arya Tavallaei, University of California Santa Cruz
Presenter: Mehdi Rezania
Presenter: Siavash Mohebbi, University of Virginia
 

Broadcasting Ethnic Identity: Cultural Resistance, Hybridization, and the Invention of Urban Gilaki Popular Music in Mid-20th Century Iran

Arya Tavallaei

University of California Santa Cruz



Tradition, Modernity and the Rise of Music Industry in Iran

Mehdi Rezania

University of Alberta



Nuanced Neutrality: Iranian Musicians and Politics of Avoidance in the Social Media Era

Siavash Mohebbi

University of Virginia

7:00pm
-
9:00pm
Improvisation Section Business Meeting
Location: M-302
Date: Friday, 24/Oct/2025
8:30am
-
10:30am
05H: International Rap and Hip Hop
Location: M-302
Presenter: Shiva Ramkumar
Presenter: Julia Catherine Santoli, CUNY Graduate Center
Presenter: Qifang Hu, University of Texas at Austin
Presenter: Susan Ashley Jacob, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
 

Rhyme and Flow in Tamil Rap

Shiva Ramkumar

Harvard University



Configuring Gender through Hip Hop: Subôi

Julia Catherine Santoli

CUNY Graduate Center,



From Shima-uta to Hip-Hop: Okinawan Popular Music and the Global Echoes of Black Musical Resistance

Qifang Hu

University of Texas at Austin



“Honour Your Mother and Father, Ya Bastards”: the New Masculinity in Aotearoa New Zealand Hip Hop

Susan Ashley Jacob

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa,

10:45am
-
12:15pm
06H: Pop Protests
Location: M-302
Presenter: Andrew Vogel, University of Florida
Presenter: Saman Montaseri, University of California, Los Angeles
Presenter: Cody Black, Vanderbilt University
 

Somos Mexicanos, No Somos Criminales: Sounding Resistance Through Chican@ Ska

Andrew Vogel

University of Florida,



Islamic Disco: Protest and Cultural Remix in Iran

Saman Montaseri

University of California, Los Angeles



Playlisting the City: “City Pop,” Alienated Listening, and the Aural Politics of Belonging in Postcolonial South Korea

Cody Black

Vanderbilt University

1:45pm
-
3:45pm
07H: Film as Ethnography: Reflections from Colombia’s Sibundoy Valley, Hurricane-Ravaged North Carolina, and Bloomington, Indiana
Location: M-302
Chair: Rebecca Dirksen, Indiana University
 

Film as Ethnography: Reflections from Colombia’s Sibundoy Valley, Hurricane-Ravaged North Carolina, and Bloomington, Indiana

Chair(s): Rebecca Dirksen (Indiana University)

Discussant(s): Rebecca Dirksen (Indiana University)

 

Presentations in the Session

 

Tabanok

Rowan Glass
Indiana University

 

(Re)Building: Crafting Relief for Victims of Hurricane Helene

Robert McCormac
Indiana University

 

How I Hear the Blues: The Oral & Aural Narrative of Black America

Lamont Jack Pearley
Indiana University

 

Walk Over Here: Walkover Sounds and Stones and the People Who Love It (Part 1)

chloē noelle fourte
Indiana University

4:00pm
-
5:30pm
08H: Research tools for ethnomusicology: Navigating bibliography, historiography, and ethnography
Location: M-302
Chair: Russell Skelchy
 

Research tools for ethnomusicology: Navigating bibliography, historiography, and ethnography

Russell Skelchy

RILM

7:00pm
-
8:00pm
Society for Arab Music Research Keynote
Location: M-302
8:00pm
-
9:00pm
Society for Arab Music Research Mixer
Location: M-302
Date: Saturday, 25/Oct/2025
8:30am
-
10:30am
09H: Digital Sound and Data
Location: M-302
Presenter: David VanderHamm, Johnson County Community College
Presenter: Jonathan Benjamin Myers
Presenter: Adai Song
 

Working with the Algorithm: Surveillance Capitalism, Digital Labor, and Crises of Value in Online Virtuosities

David VanderHamm

Johnson County Community College



Precarity of Virtualization: Layered Displacement in the Kurdish Exile Museum's Audio Collections

Ashley Nicole Thornton

The University of Texas at Austin



Pluralising Bias in Music AI: Specialized Data Architectures for a World of Musical Idioms

Jonathan Benjamin Myers

University of California, Santa Cruz



The Disruption of Encoded Gender in Pop Music— A Comparative Study of Technology, Sound Design, and Female Agency in U.S. Pop and Mandopop/C-pop

Adai Song

University of Virginia

10:45am
-
12:15pm
10H: Racialization
Location: M-302
Presenter: Rodrigo Chocano, University of Vienna
Presenter: Martin Ringsmut
Presenter: Kai Tang, University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna
 

Fritz Bose and the Concept of Race in Comparative Musicology

Martin Ringsmut

University of Vienna



Engineering the Minorities: Folk Music, Indigenous Peoples, and the Creation of Ethnicities in China

Kai Tang

University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna



"We Are Not Like the Blacks from Other Places": Afro-Peruvian Musicians, Elite Racializing Representations, and Grassroots Agency (1920-1955)

Rodrigo Chocano

University of Vienna

12:30pm
-
1:30pm
African and African Diaspora Studies Keynote
Location: M-302
Date: Sunday, 26/Oct/2025
8:30am
-
10:30am
11H: Singing and Spirituality
Location: M-302
Presenter: Ben Griffin, University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music
Presenter: Golam Rabbani, Toronto Metropolitan University
Presenter: Hicham Chami, Yale University
Presenter: Timothy Mangin, Boston College
 

Bondye fè l: Singing Resilience in Central Ohio’s Haitian Protestant Churches

Ben Griffin

University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music



Spiritual Resonances of Maizbhandari Songs: Eco-Centrism, Adivasi Rights, and Resistance in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh

Golam Rabbani

Toronto Metropolitan University



Singing the Walī: Moulay Abdeslam, Resonant Reverence, and the Poetics of Devotion

Hicham Chami

Yale University,



“Echoes of Devotion: Sonic Sufism, Senegalese Pop, and the Afrodiaspora”

Timothy Mangin

Boston College

10:45am
-
12:15pm
12H: Being, Breathing, and Aliveness: Transforming Shared Space through Movement
Location: M-302
 

Being, Breathing, and Aliveness: Transforming Shared Space through Movement

Chair(s): Juan Diego Diaz (University of California, Davis)

 

Presentations in the Session

 

Feather’s Breath, Spirit’s Mouth: Phono-choreography at the Chefoo School for the Deaf

YuHao Chen
Ohio State University

 

The Politics of Audibility and Visibility in Basque Plaza Dances

Caitlin Romtvedt
University of California, Berkeley

 

Black Aliveness – A Drummer’s Take: Black Nationalist Music, Black Music Criticism, Black Worlding, 1965-1969

Max Jefferson
University of California, Berkeley