Sarah Then Bergh

Overview

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 thesis, ‘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.

Sarah’s research interests are located at the intersection of international relations, political theory, Africana political thought and musicology. Her doctoral research explores the functions of music and the aural as a cognitive and affective mode of perception, political communication, and mobilization in relation to imaginaries of the international and/as diaspora; 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

with Siba N. Grovogui. ‘ „Das dürfte in Europa eigentlich nicht passieren“: Das Problem der Internationalen Beziehungen aus Sicht des Global Südens’, Peripherie: Politik, Ökonomie, Kultur, Vol 43, No. 169-170 (August 2023), pp. 11-45. https://doi.org/10.3224/peripherie.v43i1.02

‘Subverting Colonial Aesthetics: Frantz Fanon, W.E.B. Du Bois and Janelle Monaé’, in: Grant Farred (ed.). Africana Studies: Theoretical Futures (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2022).