Join the Department of Performing and Media Arts for PMAPS Colloquium: The Black Nowhere: Sonic Architectures of Dispossession by Dr. Ola Mohammed, Assistant Professor at York University, on Friday, November 7, from 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm, in the Film Forum, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts. This event is free and open to the public.
In Dr. Mohammed’s lecture, she will present her current book project titled The Black Nowhere: The Social and Cultural Politics of Listening to Black Canada(s), which examines the sonic dimension of anti-Blackness in Canada. The lecture will showcase Dr. Mohammed’s interdisciplinary research exploring Black cultural production, Black social life and Black being as sites of possibility.
This event is co-sponsored by the Department of Africana Studies, Literatures of English, and Music and Sound Studies.
Dr. Ola Mohammed is an Assistant Professor and Coordinator of the Black Canadian Studies Certificate in the Department of Humanities at York University, where she teaches Black Studies, Popular Culture, and Sound Studies courses. She was recently awarded the York Research Chair Tier II in Black Sonic Cultures that generates a series of projects that advance innovative interdisciplinary analysis of Black Cultural practices, the impacts of urban change, and what produces a livable city to highlight both the constraints of anti-Black racism and the ways Black people disrupt dominant spatial forms. Her research interests include Black Studies, Popular Music and Sound Studies, Performance Theory and Diaspora Studies. Her forthcoming publications include “Cringy Sounds, Pleasurable Acts: The Difficulty of Articulating Antiblackness in Canada” in the Power of Listening collection celebrating the 15th anniversary of Sounding Out! Sound Studies blog by NYU Press as well as an entry on “Sound” in the Thinking from Black: A Lexicon by Alchemy by Knopf Canada. Her manuscript, The Black Nowhere: Sonic Architectures of Dispossession, examines the often- overlooked auditory dimension of anti-Blackness in Canada. The work examines how sound is shaped by political ontologies of race and the epistemological stakes of critical listening practices in the face of quotidian and spectacular anti-Black violence.
This event is co-sponsored by the Performance and Media Arts Presentation (PMAPS) colloquium series. Inaugurated in Fall 2021, PMAPS is the latest iteration of a colloquium series within the Department of Performing and Media Arts. Its greatest vision lies in offering graduate students a space to present their work to students, faculty, and professionals of similar fields and interests. The content of its presentation’s ranges from media studies to dance, and such diverse nature has earned the attention of related communities both within and outside Ithaca, NY.
