Sonjah Stanley Niaah

Sonjah Stanley Niaah is a Jamaican scholar, international speaker and Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of the West Indies where she was Director of the Institute of Caribbean Studies & Reggae Studies Unit (2015-2021). She is a leading author and theorist on Black Atlantic performance geographies, popular culture, and the sacred, and Caribbean Cultural Studies more broadly. She holds international appointments as member of the International Scientific Committee of the Routes of Enslaved Peoples Project (UNESCO), Senior Research Associate, Rhodes University (honorary), and Advisor, International Cultural Diversity Organisation. She has over eighty publications among them the acclaimed Dancehall: From Slave Ship to Ghetto (2010), Dancehall: A Reader on Jamaican Music and Culture (2020) and Island Cultures and Festivals: A Creative Ecosystem (2024). Her research and opinions have appeared in various media, among them Netflix, The Guardian, BBC, The Washington Post, NPR, The Fader and Pop Matters, and she has delivered over one hundred and fifty keynote, specially invited, conference and other presentations globally. In 2019 she introduced the Sound Culture book series at the UWI Press which is dedicated to publishing original work on Caribbean music. She is also Editor of the newly established Caribbean Music and Sound Cultures journal at Intellect Books