Ari X

Focuses: Popular Music; 20th-century Black Internationalism; Afro-Diasporic Anti-Imperialism; Sound Studies; Performance Studies; Archival Studies; Personal Archives; Friendship & Intimacies; Rehearsal; Jam Sessions; Improvisation

Degree: B.A., Ethnicity & Race Studies; B.A., English, Columbia College

Information: Ari is a Ph.D. student in the Departments of Black Studies and American Studies. They are committed to tracing the anti-imperialist resonances of collaborative music training, tradition, and improvisation as stewarded by peoples of African descent, with a focus on the 20th century. In their work, Ari attends to archives of music rehearsal, education, and jamming as a communal and quotidian practice that unsettles constructions of race, gender, nation, genre, and individual virtuosity. 

At Columbia, Ari’s B.A. Honors Thesis in English, awarded the Bunner Prize in American Literature, follows the multimodal records of friendship, the blues, and Third World internationalism between Nina Simone and Langston Hughes through their co-composition of “Backlash Blues.” Ari’s B.A. Honors Thesis in Ethnicity & Race Studies traces the wayward practices of Black musicians sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Cultural Presentations Program: in focusing on musicians’ detours from the project of State-sponsored international performances, their thesis considers how musicians’ rehearsals, training, and jam sessions create a counter-archive of anti-imperialism from the State’s project of USian nation-building and imperial repair. Ari enjoys practicing musical instruments, growing alongside their plants, and running.

Combined Ph.D. with American Studies