SEM Northeast Chapter
Spring 2026 Chapter Meeting
Friday May 1, 2026
PM
3:00-3:45 Registration
3:45-4:00 Welcoming
4:00-5:30 Panel 1: Power, Access, and Control in Popular Music
Chair: Bradford Garvey, Brandeis University
4:00-4:30 Conducting Ethnomusicological Fieldwork in the Popular Mainstream (David B. Pruett, University of Massachusetts Boston)
4:30-5:00 This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: An Analysis of Capitalist Realism, Neoliberal Feminism, Hyperindividualism, and Parasocial Relationships in Popular Music (Erika Chen, Wellesley College)
5:00-5:30 Performing the Human: Artificial Intelligence and Popular Music in the United States (Katherine Miner, Boston University)
6:00-7:30 Dinner, at the Mandel Center Atrium (upstairs)
Saturday May 2, 2026
AM
9:30–10:30 Breakfast and Registration
10:30-12:00 Panel 2: Global Popular Music, Identity, and Resistance
Chair: Sara Feili, Wesleyan University
10:30-11:00 The Vandal’s Claim: Hip Hop and Icelandic Culture Beyond Touristification (Isabella Zohreh Gutierrez, Trinity College)
11:00-11:30 “Every Day We’re Grilled on an Iron Plate”: The Peculiar Success of “Oyoge! Taiyaki-kun” (Tristan Wilson, The New School)
11:30-12:00 Barriers to Entry: Chinese Artists’ Struggle in the U.S. Music Industry (Kexin (Tiffany) Ren, Wellesley College)
PM
12:00-1:30 Lunch, in Mandel Center Atrium
1:30-3:00 Panel 3: Music, Community, and Social Worlds
Chair: Ali Hajmalek, Boston University
1:30-2:00 Repetition and Iteration: Network Formation and Sustenance in Boston’s Underground Techno Scene (Corin Duey, Boston University)
2:00-2:30 Metaphors and Movement: Song and Status in Oman (Bradford Garvey, Brandeis University)
2:30-3:00 Negotiating the Social Life of a Cambodian Classical Ensemble in Lowell, MA. (Stéphanie Khoury, Tufts University)
3:15-5:15 Panel 4: Attunement, Pedagogy, and Mediated Listening
Chair: Winnie W. C. Lai, Dartmouth College
3:15-3:45 Tuning Into Each Other: Inclusive Intercultural Music-Making at the Global Musician Workshop (Shirley Mak, Brown University)
3:45-4:15 Music as Erotic Education: Gurus and Shishyas in the Age of #MeToo (Ahona Palchoudhuri, Brown University)
4:15-4:45 Voicing the ‘Camera-Ravaged’ Pamir: Music and Audiovisual Sovereignty in Soviet Central Asian Minority Cinema (Katie Freeze Wolf)
4:45-5:15 Listening to Protests: Film as Engaged Scholarship with Hong Kong as a Case Study (Winnie W. C. Lai, Dartmouth College)
5:30–6:30 Chapter Business Meeting, Award Announcement
6:45 Dinner
8:00 End of Conference
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Many thanks to Brandeis University, Department of Music, Professor Bradford Garvey and colleagues for offering their time and resources to host this meeting of SEM Northeast Chapter.