David Ward

Dr Miranda Crowdus

Associate Professor, Religions and Cultures

Research areas: Jewish Music Studies, Liturgical Music, Acoustics and Space, Ethnomusicology, Musicology, Cultural Studies, Cultural Heritage and Cultural Sustainability, Ethnography, Critical Gender Studies, Religious Phenomenology, Practice as Research

Contact information

Email:

miranda.crowdus@concordia.ca

Website:

http://concordia.academia.edu/MirandaCrowdus

Biography

Miranda Crowdus is Associate Professor at the Department of Religions and Cultures at Concordia University where she also holds the Research Chair in Canadian Jewish Studies. Her research interests lie at the intersection of ethnomusicology and Jewish Studies and Critical Heritage Studies. She earned her doctorate at City University London in 2016. She was a research associate at the European Centre for Jewish Music in Hanover, Germany. Her book Hip Hop in Urban Borderlands was published in 2019. She recently concluded a DFG-funded project “Queering Jewish Cultural Heritage in Europe: Jewish Transformations Through Reparative Response and Creative Encounter” and released an edited volume with Routledge based on the project. She is currently working on a monograph in exploring the affordances of sounded liturgy as a Critical Heritage Studies method.

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9781003612087/queering-jewish-cultural-heritage-europe-miranda-crowdus-sacha-kagan

Miranda Crowdus est professeure agrégée au Département des religions et des cultures de l'Université Concordia, où elle est également titulaire de la Chaire de recherche en études juives canadiennes. Ses recherches portent sur l'ethnomusicologie, les études juives et les études critiques du patrimoine. Elle a obtenu son doctorat à la City University de Londres en 2016. Elle a été chercheuse associée au Centre européen de musique juive de Hanovre, en Allemagne. Son ouvrage *Hip Hop in Urban Borderlands* a été publié en 2019. Elle a récemment mené à bien un projet financé par la DFG, intitulé « Queering Jewish Cultural Heritage in Europe: Jewish Transformations Through Reparative Response and Creative Encounter », et a publié un ouvrage collectif chez Routledge, issu de ce projet. Elle travaille actuellement à une monographie explorant les potentialités de la liturgie sonore en tant que méthode d'études critiques du patrimoine.

SPP Jüdisches Kulturerbe (spp-juedisches-kulturerbe.de)

Teaching activities

Courses

Undergraduate:

RELI 220 Introduction to Judaism
RELI 398 Hip-Hop Culture and Social Change
RELI 366 Music and Religion
RELI 407 Judaism, Magic, and Mysticism

Graduate:

RELI 6017 Nations in Conversations? Jewish and Indigenous Voices in Canada
RELI 6017 Music and Religious Expression
RELI 6014 Jewish Magic, Mysticism, and Folklore: Critical Perspectives
RELI 6003/498 Ethnographic Fieldwork: Theory, Ethics, and Applications

Publications

Select Publications

Monographs

Crowdus, M. 2019. Hip Hop in Urban Borderlands: Music-Making and Intercultural Dynamics on the Margins of the Jewish State. Bern: Peter Lang.

Edited Volumes

Kagan, S. and Crowdus, M. (eds.) 2026. Queering Jewish Cultural Heritage in Europe: Iridescently Yours. Routledge.

Co-authored Books

Crowdus, M.,Randhofer, R.,Ross, S. 2020. Jüdisches Kulturerbe MUSIK - Divergenzen und Zeitlichkeit. Überlegungen zu einer Kulturellen Nachhaltigkeit aus Sicht der Jüdischen Musikstudien. Sarah Ross (ed.) Bern: Peter Lang.

Book Chapters

Crowdus, M. 2026. “Sonic Queering Practices: Sounding Judaism in Dead Spaces” in Queering Jewish Cultural Heritage in Europe: Iridescently Yours. 135 – 153, Miranda Crowdus and Sacha Kagan (eds.) London: Routledge.

Crowdus, M. 2026. “(Un)settling Pilgrimages: Local European and Canadian-Jewish Encounters With Jewish Cultural Heritage” in Queering Jewish Cultural Heritage in Europe: Iridescently Yours. 168 – 191, Miranda Crowdus and Sacha Kagan (eds.) London: Routledge.

Crowdus, M., Kagan, S., Kranz, D., Ross S. et al. 2025. “On the nexus of Jewish Heritage, Critical Heritage Studies, and Sustainability” in Ross, Sarah and Kellner, Tom (eds.) On the nexus of Jewish Heritage, Critical Heritage Studies, and Sustainability, Berlin: De Gruyter [in press]

Crowdus, M. and Kagan, S. 2025. “Queering Perspectives on Jewish Heritage: uncovering complexities in sustainability-oriented heritage practice” in Ross, Sarah and Kellner, Tom (eds.) On the nexus of Jewish Heritage, Critical Heritage Studies, and Sustainability, Berlin: De Gruyter [in press]

Crowdus, M., Kagan, S., Kranz, D., Ross S. et al. 2024. “On the nexus of Jewish Heritage, Critical Heritage Studies, and Sustainability” in Ross, Sarah and Kellner, Tom (eds.) On the nexus of Jewish Heritage, Critical Heritage Studies, and Sustainability, Berlin: De Gruyter [in press]

Crowdus, M. and Kagan, S. 2024. “Queering Perspectives on Jewish Heritage: uncovering complexities in sustainability-oriented heritage practice” in Ross, Sarah and Kellner, Tom (eds.) On the nexus of Jewish Heritage, Critical Heritage Studies, and Sustainability, Berlin: De Gruyter [in press]

Crowdus, M. 2023. ‘Remembering the Destruction, Re-animating the Collective: Romaniote Liturgical Music after the Holocaust’, in The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Music Studies:553-568, Tina Frühauf (ed.), New York: Oxford University Press.

Crowdus, M. 2021. ‘Remembering the Destruction, Re-animating the Collective: Romaniote Liturgical Music after the Holocaust’, in The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Music, Tina Frühauf (ed.), New York: Oxford University Press.

Crowdus, M. 2021. ‘Collective Memory in Jewish Popular Music: (Re)constructions across Generations’, in We Will Live After Babylon: Armenian and Jewish Historical Experience between Expulsion, Exile and Destruction, Regina Randhofer, Sarah Ross (eds.) Oldenburg: Walter de Gruyter.

Crowdus, M. 2020. with Ross, Sarah. ‘Applied Ethnomusicology and Jewish Music Studies: Negotiating “Third Mission” Requests in Germany Today’, in Diggin' Up Music: Musikethnologie als Baustelle, MichaelFühr, Kersten Klenke, Julio Mendivil (eds.) Hildesheim: Olms Verlag, pp.104-127

Crowdus, M. 2020. ‘Blackness, Mizrahi Identity and Ethnic Shifting in Contemporary Israeli Popular Music’ in Selected Racial Boundaries: The Social Life of Blackness in Israel. Uri Dorchin, Gabriella Djerrahian (eds). Albany, NY:SUNY Press.

Crowdus, M. 2015.“Deviance, Polyvalence and Musical ‘Third Space’: Negotiating Boundaries of Jewishness at Palestinian Hip Hop Performances” in Boundaries, Identity and Belonging in Modern Judaism. M. Diemling and L. Ray (Eds.): Routledge.

Peer-Reviewed Articles

Crowdus, M. 2024. “Jewish Music Pedagogies and Cultural Sustainability: Case Studies from Lower Saxony and Quebec” in Canadian Jewish Studies, 38, 56-84.

Crowdus, M. and Dorchin U. 2024. “Mizrahi Rap in Israel: Ethnicity and Intertextuality in the Cosmopolitan Post-Genre Era” in Ethnomusicology, 68(1), 96-117.

Crowdus, M. 2023. “Decolonial Affordances: Sounding and Listening Interventions in Higher Education” Arc: The Journal of the School of Religious Studies. McGill University, 51, pp.76 – 120.

Crowdus, M. 2022. ‘“Sweet Sounds and Airs that Give Delight and Hurt’: Colonial Oppression and Indigenous Agency in Lisa Jackson’s Film Soundtrack” in Living Histories: A Past Studies Journal, Vol. 1 (June 2022).

Data sets:

Crowdus, M. and Proutskova, Polina[primary author], et al. 2023. The VocalNotes Dataset, (2023, September 15).[Dataset]. ISMIR 2023: THE VocalNotes DATASET.

Ethnographic CD Sets:

Crowdus, M. 2019. ‘Cantor Haim Ischakis: Synagogue Music of the Romaniote Jews of Greece’ CD Liner notes: EZJM Ethnographic Fieldwork Recordings Series.

Crowdus, M. 2020. ‘From Mumbai to Sydney: Oral Traditions of Synagogue Chant in the Jewish-Babylonian Diaspora’ CD Liner notes: EZJM Ethnographic Fieldwork Recordings Series.