Research areas: Ethnomusicology; comparative musicology; music, performance, and identity; collective music practices; music, ritual, and spirituality; music, emotion, and meaning; theory and analysis; variations & improvisation; music, health, and wellbeing; music and the diaspora; music in Morocco and Bali
Recent publication: “Music for the Unseen: Interaction between Two Realms During a Gnawa Lila,” African Music: Journal of the International Library of African Music 9, no. 3 (December 2013): 151–82.
Current project: Drawing on ethnographic research, my book project investigates the enduring significance of Gnawa music to the lives of hereditary Black Moroccan practitioners and their followers in the changing climate of late 20th-century Morocco. It foregrounds the transformative role of the guembri (a 3-string lute) to Gnawa culture, as an instrument of healing, human expression, and aesthetic pleasure.
Music suggestion: Feeling Good sung by Nina Simone
