Sarah Then Bergh

Ph.D. Student in Africana Studies

Summary

Sarah Then Bergh is a doctoral candidate in the Africana Studies and Research Centre at Cornell University (Ithaca, NY). Originally from Germany, she earned her BSc. Econ. in International Politics, and her M.A. in International Relations at Aberystwyth University (Wales). For her master’s dissertation, ‘Music, Third Space and Intersubjectivity: Reconceptualizing the Theoretical Encounter between IR and ‘International Relations from Below’’ Sarah was awarded the Alfred Zimmern Prize by the Department of International Politics at Aberystwyth.

Her current research interests are located at the intersection of Africana philosophy, political and international relations theory, and musicology to explore the functions of the aural as a cognitive and affective mode of political communication in relation to: imaginaries of the international and/as diaspora; attendant practices of subjectivity formation; and ethics of relationality within the realm of diplomatic and other international encounters.

In addition to her academic research, Sarah has gained editorial experience at various publishing houses, including Oxford University Press and Zubaan Books, New Delhi. She has been awarded fellowships and grants from the Department of International Politics, and the Music Department at Aberystwyth University; the Mellon Collaborative Studies in Architecture, Urbanism and the Humanities at the Cornell Council for the Arts; as well as the Humanities Council, and the Institute for Comparative Modernities at Cornell University.

Publications

Then Bergh, Sarah. ‘Subverting Colonial Aesthetics: Frantz Fanon, W.E.B. Du Bois and Janelle Monaé’, in: Farred, Grant (ed.). Africana Studies: Theoretical Futures (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2021). [In print].

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