Neal Feldman

My research interests sit at the intersection of Middle Eastern studies, linguistic anthropology, and ethnomusicology. I work on Palestinian and Palestinian-adjacent subcultural and alternative music in diaspora, with an eye toward the ways in which solidarity communities are built through sound and through music that employs a fluid form of generic classification. I’m looking particularly at bands and musicians who have recently emerged and critique the policies of the Israeli government. My work uses discourse-centered and semiotic analysis, including the ways that chronotope, register, stance and footing, scale and translation, and indexicality shape the social and political lives of musicians and the fanbases they create by integrating alternative subgenres with Middle Eastern languages and musical tropes. I’m also interested in how individuals’ narratives clash with the everyday effects of Israel’s policies, as well as the pull to Palestine solidarity that involves the centering of Palestinians on the ground and speaking out against Israeli policies using artistic platforms. This involves attention toward the ways that centering nostalgic memories and imagining liberatory futures is done in Palestinian diaspora.