Farzaneh (Farzi) Hemmasi

Farzaneh Hemmasi is an Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology, researching Iranian popular music, migration, media, and politics. She graduated from Columbia University in 2010 and has held fellowships with the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Humanities Forum, Columbia University’s Middle East Institute as well as its Institute of Social and Economic Policy and Research. Her publications have appeared in Ethnomusicology (January 2013), the edited volume Muslim Rap, Halal Soaps, and Revolutionary Theater (U Texas 2011), and Mahoor Musical Quarterly (2008), and she has presented at a number of North American and international conferences. She has taught ethnomusicology at the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, and Hunter College in the City University of New York. Farzaneh is currently writing a book that examines the intersection of popular music, affect, technological mediation, and politics in Iran and its diasporas from the 1960s to the present. In the fall of 2011, she began a new project documenting sound and musical practices associated with New York City’s Occupy Wall Street movement. She also enjoys performing Middle Eastern and Western classical and popular musics and is a founder and co-director of the Columbia University Middle Eastern Music Ensemble.

She was fellow at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn Humanities Forum) from 2010-11, and directed Columbia's new Middle Eastern music ensemble from 2011-12.

Bio courtesy of her faculty page.