Miranda Crowdus is associate professor at the Department of Religions and Cultures. She assumed the directorship of the Institute in January of 2022. Crowdus’ research interests lie at the intersection of ethnomusicology and Jewish Studies. Crowdus’ oversees several research initiatives, students internships and fellowships, visiting scholar schemes, and community collaborations at the Institute, and other programming related to the Institute’s mandate.
Crowdus developed Performing the Canadian Jewish Archive, an ongoing initiative under the aegis of the Endowed Chair in Canadian Jewish Studies at Concordia University. This research mandate currently offers research fellowships that are not only open to Concordia students, but to any qualified applicants who have a contribution to make to the project.
Crowdus is also currently working on research on Jewish cultural heritage and cultural sustainability with a particular emphasis on intangible cultural heritage. The recent edited volume Queering Jewish Cultural Heritage in Europe: Iridescently Yours (2026) based on this research puts forward the idea of “iridescent heritage” as a new framework and highlights the Canadian Jewish dimension by analysing “pilgrimages” of Canadian Jews to Europe heritage sites. Her monograph (in progress) looks at sounded liturgy as sonic intervention with a significant component on sounding religion in light of Quebec’s secularization policies.
