Cultural historian, writer, and curator Josh Kun will present new research on musical representations of contemporary migrant and refugee crises, across the United States, Middle East, Africa, and Europe. Mixing work from migrant and refugee musicians with sonic experiments in contemporary art and literature, Kun listens for musical responses to a world of forced removals, expulsions, and detentions. In this century of mass displacement, is music a form that migration takes? 

Josh Kun is a professor at the USC Annenberg School of Communication, where he holds the Chair in Cross-Cultural Communication. He is the author and editor of several books, including most recently The Tide Was Always High: The Music of Latin America in Los Angeles (UC Press), Double Vision: The Photography of George Rodriguez (Hat & Beard), and The Autograph Book of L.A.: Improvements on the Page of the City (Angel City Press). As a curator and artist, he has worked with SFMOMA, Getty Foundation, Grammy Museum, California African American Museum, and Vincent Price Art Museum, among others. 

RSVP to kade@usc.edu