New Orleans, Katrina, and Bounce: A Conversation with Big Freedia

Tuesday, February 11, 2025, 4 PM ET, Online on Zoom

Harvard Radcliffe Institute and the Harvard University Department of Music welcome the Queen of Bounce, Big Freedia, for a conversation about music, community, and strength in the face of climate change.

This program is the second in a pair of webinars to explore the impact and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina on the musical traditions of New Orleans. In the 20th anniversary year of the storm’s devastating landfall in southeast Louisiana, leading performers, artists, and scholars will share their perspectives on art, music, and justice in the context of climate change. How have the performers’ music, practice, and community changed over the last two decades? Can future climate crises be occasions for artistic growth, reimagined community, spurs to social action, and new forms of solidarity? What lessons can New Orleans and its ever-evolving music teach the world about resilience and renewal?

Big Freedia will be joined in conversation with Lauron J. Kehrer (Western Michigan University), a scholar of race, gender, and sexuality in American popular music and Loren Kajikawa (The George Washington University), a scholar of rap and hip-hop, as well as race, gender, and politics.

This program is cosponsored by the Harvard University Department of Music.

Harvard Radcliffe Institute gratefully acknowledges the Ethel and David Jackson Fund for the Future Climate, which is supporting this event.

Register

Free and open to the public.

To view this event online, individuals will need to register via Zoom.