Njelle Hamilton

As a singer, songwriter, storyteller and scholar, I am fascinated by the possibilities of sound in self-making, art-making, and world-making. I am deeply shaped by a childhood nourished on my late father’s oral tales, rural Jamaican gossip, reading everything on the shelves of my mother’s bookstore, and the storytelling in reggae and 90s pop. In my research I have been thinking about how recorded music helps us remember, how sound might transport us to alternative futures. In my artistic practice I have been experimenting with how the musical genres I grew up with like reggae and dub might structure a novel and teach us how to listen (and read) differently. My courses are guided by a mission of joy-sparking and play. I teach weird, fun, thought-provoking texts from the Caribbean and the Global South, and invite students to try out responding to art in creative and even deeply personal ways because I believe that learning should delight, inspire and transform.