Join the Zolberg Institute and the Consulate General of Switzerland in New York for a discussion with Jessie Cox (Harvard University), author of Black Sounds of Switzerland, moderated by Mia White (New School).
Jessie Cox is a composer, drummer, and scholar who works on critical theory, Black studies, and music. His talk will explore questions of sound, movement, and migration. His recent book, Sounds of Black Switzerland affirms the value of Black life through sound and explores the Blackness in relation to citizenship, immigration laws, gender, kinship, and belonging.
Mia Charlene White is Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies in the Urban & Environmental Studies Program at the Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts (formerly Schools of Public Engagement), with a co-teaching appointment at the Milano School of Policy, Management, and Environment, at Parsons’ School of Design Strategies.Â
Jessie Cox is Assistant Professor of Music at Harvard University and active as a composer, drummer, and scholar. Cox makes music about the universe and our future in it. Through avant-garde classical, experimental jazz, and sound art, he has devised his own strand of musical science fiction, one that asks where we go next. Cox’s music goes forward. When he describes it, he compares it to time travel and space exploration, likening the role of a composer to that of a rocket ship traversing undiscovered galaxies.Â
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Jessie Cox is Assistant Professor of Music at Harvard University and active as a composer, drummer, and scholar. Cox makes music about the universe and our future in it. Through avant-garde classical, experimental jazz, and sound art, he has devised his own strand of musical science fiction, one that asks where we go next. Cox’s music goes forward. When he describes it, he compares it to time travel and space exploration, likening the role of a composer to that of a rocket ship traversing undiscovered galaxies. He is influenced by a vast array of artists who have used their music to imagine futures, and takes Afrofuturism as a core inspiration, asking questions about existence, and the ways we make spaces habitable. A dedicated collaborator, Cox has worked as a composer and drummer with ensembles and institutions such as the Sun Ra Arkestra, LA Phil, Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Modern, and the International Contemporary Ensemble; at Festivals such as Wien Modern, Lucerne Festival, MaerzMusik, and Opera Omaha. His first monograph Sounds of Black Switzerland: Blackness, Music, and Unthought Voices (Duke UP, 2025) addresses how thinking with blackness and experimental musical practices might afford the opening of new discourses, such as thematizing Black Swiss Life.
