Dr Ellie Armon Azoulay's Qualifications (2)

MRes Exhibition Studies
Level 7 - Postgraduate Masters (MA/MSc), Undergraduate Integrated Masters (e.g. MEng), Postgraduate Diploma/Certificates (e.g. PGCE)

Status	Complete
Part Time	No
Years	2014 - 2016
Project Title	The voiceless were singing when you came to give them voice: on the Alan Lomax Archive
Project Description	interdisciplinary and critical reading of the Alan Lomax collection archived at the Library or Congress in Washington DC. Focusing on field recordings and photographs taken during the New Deal era it explores racial hierarchies, canonisation, north vs south divide, cultural, racial and class divisions.
Awarding Institution	University of the Arts London

PhD ib American Studies
Level 8 - Doctorate Degrees (PhD/DPhil)

Status	Complete
Part Time	No
Years	2017 - 2021
Project Title	Reclaiming the Lore: A Critical Reading of the Archives and Practices of Collectors of African American Folk Music in the American South, 1900-1950.
Project Description	This dissertation explores different approaches to collecting African American music in the United States elaborated by African American collectors as part of what I call 'Reclaiming the Lore'. The departure point of the dissertation is that white collectors' practices of collecting African American folk music are embedded in slavery and its legacy and they reinforce structures of white supremacy and power. The study explores the key role of national institutions such as the Library of Congress in securing white collectors' monopoly during the New Deal era and in shaping the history of the field. It challenges the category of the white expert collector who was assumed to be specialised in the culture(s) of the historically disempowered people (who were mostly denied opportunities to inhabit such positions) while enjoying access and accolades. At the heart of this dissertation is the project of reclamation developed and practised by generations of Black people across the diaspora. The reclamation project and its importance is reconstructed from scrutiny of the work and passionate commitment of African American collectors and the individuals and communities who performed the songs. The dissertation traces various forms of refusal to comply with structures of white supremacy and subjugation, applying theories of fugitivity as well as community building and empowerment. Focusing on the American South from the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries, the study uses underexamined material from local archives to explore the work of Zora Neale Hurston, Willis Laurence James and John W. Work I, II and III and highlights their extensive collaboration and exchange with wide networks of people committed to recording, performing and enlivening African American folk music.
Awarding Institution	University of Kent