Dr. Michael A. Figueroa (person leading the event) is Associate Professor of Music at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. He researches music and politics in the SWANA region (South West Asia and North Africa) and its diasporas. The first phase of his career has focused on music in the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, culminating in his first book, “City of Song: Music and the Making of Modern Jerusalem” (Oxford University Press, 2022). He has published in several journals, including Ethnomusicology, Ethnomusicology Forum, Journal of Music History Pedagogy, Journal of Musicology, and multiple edited volumes, for three of which he served as an editor. He recently has embarked on a second major project, “Music and Racial Awakening in Arab America,” a study of post-9/11 Arab American race consciousness through an expansive study of musical life across genres and geographical boundaries. Prof. Figueroa is a past Associate Director of the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies at UNC.