
The Cultural Studies Association (CSA) Awards Review Board, made up of Daniel Belgrad (University of South Florida), Robert F. Carley (Lateral: Journal of the Cultural Studies Association, Texas A&M University, College Station), Andrew Culp (California Institute of the Arts) Sean Johnson Andrews (Vice President, CSA, Columbia College, Chicago), Helen Kapstein (President, CSA, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY), Mark Nunes (Appalachian State University), Charles Thorpe (University of California, San Diego), and Jaafar Aksikas (Past President of the CSA, Columbia College, Chicago), is extremely pleased to award the 2021 Randy Martin Prize to Larissa A. Irizarry for her paper “Alter Egoing: Negotiating Bodily Sovereignty in Dirty Computer.”
Every year the Cultural Studies Association awards the Randy Martin Prize for Best Student Paper at the annual CSA conference. The Randy Martin Prize includes a certificate and an award of $500.00, plus free conference registration. The winning paper (which must be original and unpublished) may deal with any aspect of cultural studies, but should reflect the robust interdisciplinary perspective and historical materialist approach so central to the scholarship of the late Randy Martin.
Irizarry’s paper, “Alter Egoing: Negotiating Bodily Sovereignty in ‘Dirty Computer’,” traces the political arc of artist-activist Janelle Monae’s stage personas, identifying her shift towards “a sonic and metaphoric queer of color space.” Irizarry names this Black feminist affective strategy “alter egoing” and tracks Monae’s aesthetic evolution as contemporaneous with the election of the first Black president of the United States. The essay offers convincing readings of Monae’s dystopian short film “Dirty Computer” and her music videos blended with skillful theoretical analysis. The Awards Review Board especially appreciated Irizarry’s ability to critique without being overly critical.
Larissa A. Irizarry is earning a PhD in Musicology at the University of Pittsburgh. Aside from her work on queer vocality in the musical film, which is published in Women & Music, her work engages with 21st-century avant garde opera and popular music. She explores such themes as the feminization of sonic grief, operatic discourse on gender-based violence in the era of #Metoo, and Black feminist theory in visual albums. She is a two-time awardee of the Andrew W. Mellon Predoctoral Fellowship, which she is currently being funded by while she finishes her dissertation. Her current project theorizes how Black women in the music industry (e.g. Beyoncé, Janelle Monáe, Nicki Minaj) become critical interpreters of the politicized affects surrounding contemporary electoral politics when performing through their alter egos.
Every year the Cultural Studies Association awards the Randy Martin Prize for Best Student Paper at the annual CSA conference. The Randy Martin Prize includes a certificate and an award of $500.00, plus free conference registration. The winning paper (which must be original and unpublished) may deal with any aspect of cultural studies, but should reflect the robust interdisciplinary perspective and historical materialist approach so central to the scholarship of the late Randy Martin.
Irizarry’s paper, “Alter Egoing: Negotiating Bodily Sovereignty in ‘Dirty Computer’,” traces the political arc of artist-activist Janelle Monae’s stage personas, identifying her shift towards “a sonic and metaphoric queer of color space.” Irizarry names this Black feminist affective strategy “alter egoing” and tracks Monae’s aesthetic evolution as contemporaneous with the election of the first Black president of the United States. The essay offers convincing readings of Monae’s dystopian short film “Dirty Computer” and her music videos blended with skillful theoretical analysis. The Awards Review Board especially appreciated Irizarry’s ability to critique without being overly critical.
Larissa A. Irizarry is earning a PhD in Musicology at the University of Pittsburgh. Aside from her work on queer vocality in the musical film, which is published in Women & Music, her work engages with 21st-century avant garde opera and popular music. She explores such themes as the feminization of sonic grief, operatic discourse on gender-based violence in the era of #Metoo, and Black feminist theory in visual albums. She is a two-time awardee of the Andrew W. Mellon Predoctoral Fellowship, which she is currently being funded by while she finishes her dissertation. Her current project theorizes how Black women in the music industry (e.g. Beyoncé, Janelle Monáe, Nicki Minaj) become critical interpreters of the politicized affects surrounding contemporary electoral politics when performing through their alter egos.