The annual SEM meeting in Denver is coming up and there are a number of sessions on the latest preliminary program related to Arab music, Islamic traditions, and the Middle East. Here are some to keep an eye out for. (Check back for updates and email Christopher Witulski with any additions or corrections.)

Listings for other days: Thursday, Friday, Saturday

Sunday 8:30 am - 10:30 am

11G: Colorado Ballroom C

Sponsored by the Society for Arab Music Research

A Musical Mahjar: Idiom, Translocality, and Agency Across the Indian Ocean Region Chair: George Murer, The Graduate Center, City University of New York

  • 8:30 Bridging Indian Ocean Worlds through the Materio-Symbolic Power of the Gambus Lute: An Urban Malaysian Case Study Joe Kinzer, University of Washington

  • 9:00 Performing Da’wah: Musical Practices Among Students at the State Islamic University in Yogyakarta Albert Agha, University of California, Los Angeles

  • 9:30 Manifestations of Musical Polyculturalism within Indian Ocean networks: ‘Adani in Kuwait Gabriel Lavin, University of California, Los Angeles

  • 10:00 The Agora of the Fasil: Genre Boundaries and Translocal Idioms and Aesthetics in the Hadramiyat of Twenty-First Century Kuwait George Murer, The Graduate Center, City University of New York

11K: Spruce

  • 9:00 Listening, Censoring, Representing: Arab Voices, the State, and Israeli Society Ilana Webster-Kogen, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

  • 10:00 “Our Music”: Syrian Tarab and the Politics of Refugee Representation in Germany Michael O’Toole, DePaul University

Sunday 10:45 am - 12:15 pm

12J: Colorado Ballroom H

  • 11:15 Melodic Structures And Modal Development in Morocco’s Andalusian Musical Tradition Christopher Witulski, Bowling Green State University