Direkt zum Inhalt

Then Bergh, M.A. Sarah

E-Mail:
st874 [at] cornell.edu
Forschungsbereiche:
Kritische und postkoloniale Theorien der internationalen Beziehungen, Africana Studies, Kulturwissenschaften, Deutsche Außen- und Entwicklungspolitik in Afrika
Regionale Schwerpunkte:
West Afrika (insb. Mali); Europa (insb. Deutschland)
Berufserfahrung:
Seit Sep. 2022
ALMA-Fellow am Arnold Bergstraesser Institut, Freiburg im Breisgau
2019-2021
Lehrassistentin am Africana Studies and Research Center, Cornell University
2020
Leitende Lehrkraft des Freshman Writing Seminar, ‘Race and Colonialism in Modern Germany’, am Africana Studies and Research Center, Cornell University.
2020
Redaktionsassistentin an der Oxford University Press
2018-2019
Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin bei Prof. Siba N. Grovogui, Africana Studies and Research Center, Cornell University
2018
Wissenschaftlicher Aufenthalt am Yeredon Center for the Malian Arts, Bamako, Mali
2017
Verlagspraktikum bei Zubaan Publishing House, New Delhi, India
2015-2016
Redaktionsassistentin an der Oxford University Press
2015-2016
Wissenschaftliche Hilfskraft am David Davies Memorial Institute der Aberystwyth University
2015
Wissenschaftliche Hilfskraft bei Prof. Milja Kurki, Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth University
Ausbildung:
seit 2017
Promotion in Africana Studies an der Cornell University (Ithaca NY; USA)
2015-2016
M.A. International Relations an der Aberystwyth University (Wales, UK)
2012-2015
BSc. Econ. International Politics an der Aberystwyth University (Wales, UK)
Vorträge:
‘Diasporic Music: Sounding the Connection Between Sedimented Histories,’ International Studies Association (ISA) (Nashville (USA)), 31.3. 2022.

‘Between Non-place and Good Place: Utopian Imaginaries in Parliament’s Mothership Connection,’ ISA Northeast (Virtual), 4.11. 2021.

Eingeladene Diskutantin. ‘Race Matter: Research Questions in International Relations’, Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies (Cornell University), 20.5. 2021.

Sitzungsleitung. ‘Frantz Fanon and International Relations: A Cross-Disciplinary Examination of his Life and Work’, ISA (Virtual), 6.4. 2021.

‘“If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution”: Fanonian Aesthetics as Decolonizing Rhythm’, ISA (Virtual), 6.4. 2021.

‘Between the Visual and the Aural: Music and Processes of Racialization in a Bundeswehr Recruitment Ad’, Cornell Department of German Studies Graduate Student Conference (Cornell University), 6.3. 2020.

‘‘Agency’ as Social Death: Unpacking International Relations’ Theoretical Framework’, ISA International Conference (Accra (Ghana)), 1.8. 2019.

‘Music and Intersubjectivity: Reconceptualizing International Relations’ Conceptual Encounter’, ISA (Toronto (Kanada)), 30.3. 2019.

‘Between the Visual and the Aural: Music and Processes of Racialization in a Bundeswehr Recruitment Ad’, ISA (Toronto (Kanada)), 29.3. 2019.

 

Ph.D. Thesis
Arbeitstitel:
The Sounds that Nations Play: Musical Phenomenology and Subjectivity in International Relations
Zusammenfassung:

A grammatical reading of the relationship between the discipline of international relations and Africa would find that Africa continues to be imagined to hold a position of its own, such that we are faced with a severing of Africa from the world. The symptoms of this severing include the relative absence of the former as a site, driver and actor of international relations, beyond its links to development, humanitarian and aid politics, state building, or conflict resolution case studies. The structure of this narrative is problematic on both methodological and epistemological levels, and deserves a second look. To do so, I propose to examine music as a mode of political communication and perception that highlights the structure of international relations’ narratives around Africa.

I explore this in light of two site-specific research endeavours. First, I focus on German-African foreign policy, particularly its use of music as an affective mode of cognition and interpellation that dispositions German responsibility toward Africa. In this context, I probe music as a mechanism for political mobilization by examining its use for semantic representations of post-colonial Mali in the context of contemporary German foreign policy marketing. I extrapolate this from the aesthetic inception of a German army recruitment series entitled Mali, with particular focus on the series’ soundtrack as a vehicle to promote German foreign policy qua military involvement in Northeastern Mali.

Against this, I engage in ethnographic research on the sociological surroundings of Mande and Bambara musical aesthetics performed at the Yeredon Center for the Malian Arts in contemporary Bamako. Situated as a central nodal point of exchange between local and global artists, I examine the particular practices of spatial, temporal and dialogical relationality that Mande, and particularly Bambara, musical aesthetics require and enact through their production at the Center. Reading these elements alongside each other reveals music as a site and driver for affective constructions of political and social communities. Sounding a representation and/or invocation of these communities’ spatio-temporal configurations in relation to imaginaries of the international, music emerges as a fruitful sensory mode through which to engage considerations of subjectivity formation within the context of international relations.

Betreuer*in:
Prof. Dr. Siba N. Grovogui (Chair); Prof. Dr. Catherine Appert; Prof. Dr. Patchen Markell.

Then Bergh, Sarah (2022). ‘Subverting Colonial Aesthetics: Frantz Fanon, W.E.B. Du Bois and Janelle Monáe.’ In: Grant Farred (Hrsg). Africana Studies: Theoretical Futures (PA: Temple University Press).

Then Bergh, Sarah (2021). Rezension zu: Amy Niang, 2018. The Postcolonial African State in Transition. E-International Relations (12 Aug. 2021), <https://www.e-ir.info/2021/08/12/review-the-postcolonial-african-state-in-transition/>.