Schwartz To Kick Off College’s Themed Semester

— Jessica A. Schwartz will give the presentation “Radiation Sounds: Marshallese Music and Nuclear Silences” at NorthWest Arkansas Community College on Jan. 26.

Schwartz is a Mellon Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in the Department of Music at Columbia University in New York.

The talk is scheduled for 2 p.m. in the Student Center’s Room 108. Schwartz’s presentation is the kickoff event for the Marshall Islands themed semester.

At A GlanceMarshall Islands Semester

For more information about the Marshall Islands Semester, contact Kathryn Birkhead at 479-986-4052 or [email protected] or April L. Brown at 479-619-2231 or [email protected].

Source: Staff Report

Between 1946 and 1958 the United States did nuclear testing in the inhabited atolls of the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Schwartz describes how unwarned Marshallese children played in radioactive fallout of a thermonuclear test because they thought it was snow, while in New York a doo-wop band composes its hit song “Sh-Boom,” according to a college news release.

Schwartz’s presentation will delve into how these events changed American and Marshallese musical thought. Schwartz has spent years conducting field and archival research and oral histories of Marshallese throughout the islands and the United States, according to the release.

The Republic of the Marshall Islands houses a consulate in Springdale and Northwest Arkansas is home to the largest Marshallese community in the continental United States, according to the release.

The Marshall Islands themed semester marks the college’s fifth annual spring themed semester. The event is free and open to the public.

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